Stormy Weather in Paradise
by Invisible Ranger
Summary: Kruger and Lorelei are back! Five years after their last adventure, the golden thread between the fierce mercenary and the now 10-year-old girl remains strong, despite the space between them. In the Elysian world of danger, intrigue, and political chess, can they possibly deepen their strange relationship without getting killed...or killing each other...first? Paradise Years #2.
1. When Last We Met

**Stormy Weather in Paradise**

**by Invisible Ranger (HBF), 2014**

**Disclaimer: Elysium and all its characters belong to /Media Rights Capital/Sony Pictures. This is for the jazz and not for profit. OCs are mine.**

**Dedication: To MauMauKa and leave your sanity at the door, two of the best friends anyone could ask for. **

**Author's Notes: Sequel to "A Long Way From Paradise." It's certainly inspired me to write, and we'll just see where it goes from here. Thanks to my lovely Wrecking Kru for their tireless support. **

Chapter 1

Lorelei knew he was there.

In a way, the dark man never left her. When she was awake, often she found her thoughts unintentionally drifting to him, and always at the most inconvenient times: while trying to sit for an essay exam in class, the garden parties and formal dinners, when she was supposed to be putting on a brilliant display of her charm and prowess playing Mozart on the violin, the awkward introductions to an endless parade of "nice young men" at her aunt's or mother's house. Every one of these…and Lorelei had started to dread their visits… she subconsciously pictured with the same vaguely defined face, that dark, bearded, angular visage looming just beneath a tattered burlap cowl.

And then there was bedtime. That was a different matter entirely; strictly the boogeyman's hour, when he would regularly pay his visits. He, the most dedicated and tireless of all, would simply hover there as if watching over her in his own twisted way. The strangest part was, she could actually _smell _him during every one of these sojourns, a curious mélange of sweat, musk, and sour tobacco smoke. He also liked to touch her. Oh, boy, did he ever. Not in the so-called inappropriate ways, yet he would reach out, take her hand, send that eerie weird-but-cool feeling coursing through her body. Definitely unnerving, but she'd strangely come to crave it in her own way.

_If that wasn't real, then what was? Am I going crazy?_

The adults in her life hadn't been much help on the subject. _Tante _Jessica was busier than ever at work, and barely listened to anything she said. Dr. Perine called the nocturnal visits "hallucinations," and always liked to gently change the subject whenever it arose during a session. Mr. Smith, her shadow, her bodyguard…her _ally_… was only slightly more sympathetic than the two women.

"What do _you_ think he represents, Miss Delacourt?" he might say in that enigmatic Zen way he had of answering questions with more questions.

The truth was, she hadn't come up with a suitable answer yet. The obvious choice was fear: in the years following the events of her fifth birthday, which she still couldn't properly remember, Lorelei had experienced sudden, intense panic attacks at the strangest, and most awkward, of times. The sight of a plastic bucket a younger child had left in the sandbox at the playground. At the house of a friend of her mother's, when the woman had shown off her prized blood-red begonias growing in the garden. On a field trip to the CCB broadcast center, when the techs had spoken of the satellite office in New Johannesburg, South Africa. On top of all that, Lorelei had developed a near-crippling claustrophobia; dark, enclosed spaces triggered screaming fits and seizures, one of which, in an elevator, had sent her to the hospital wing again after she'd clawed at herself so badly as to draw deep gouges. The wounds had healed nearly instantly as they always did, but even Aunt Jessica had shown up in a panic. That was how serious it had been.

All of it begged to be put together, made sense of, _solved_ somehow. Lorelei had long since given up discussing these random triggers with Dr. Perine in their daily sessions, as they usually just meant a stronger dose of meds. She'd talk about her feelings, and how her day had gone, or why she'd smacked her annoying classmate Michel right in the jaw, but admit she was weak and afraid of something so trivial?

_Never_.

"C'mon, where are you hiding?" she whispered, as if to taunt her opponent to show himself. She tightened her grip on the little pistol in her hand, ready to shoot at a millisecond's notice.

In this place as well as outside, the dark man had proved elusive. Lorelei had spent countless hours hacking into the CCB's classified filesand the massive databases of Earthbound criminals' records looking for him. If she just had a name for him, perhaps it would make him less scary. Thousands of mugshots and photos, countless reports…and still she was no closer to knowing his true identity.

Yet he was real. He _had _to be real. If he wasn't, why had she become so obsessed with the very idea of him, walking that razor-thin line between sanity and craziness as she searched? A long time ago, she had given up believing in make-believe things like unicorns. That her seemed like a different person entirely. This version of herself had _seen _the dark man, who surely was made of bone and blood rather than air and fantasy, not just in her dreams, but in the land of the living. Someday, somehow, she'd find him.

At the moment, her lithe, ten-year-old body was a coiled spring at the mere thought, ready to explode. Mr. Smith had tried to teach her how to quiet the body and the mind, and, while he hadn't always been successful, one thing she had learned well was stealth. If an enemy couldn't see or hear you coming, he couldn't hurt you. Walking now on the balls of her little feet, Lorelei crept through the corridors of what she'd come to think of as her own Memory Palace. She had to keep reminding herself it wasn't real, otherwise, she might have spent entire days in here, chasing after her faceless enemy. This was merely a sim, and, like all the VR constructs on the torus, it was top-of-the-line, resetting itself for each new entrant so that no two sessions were alike. It interfaced directly with her thoughts…and since her thoughts were nearly always of him, Lorelei would find herself pursuing him through venues as diverse as an abandoned tanker ship, a steaming jungle, a bombed-out city ruin.

This time, the sim was just playing with her: it had manifested as Helene's Versailles-replica home, where Lorelei still visited weekly but hadn't lived in nearly five years. Every time she did go, without knowing why, Lorelei experienced a cold finger of dread running up and down her spine. Especially in and around the salon on the second floor, where her mother kept her second, smaller med-bay.

"Oh, don't be silly, _petit_, there's nothing to be afraid of in there. If you're worried, why don't you come to my room and help me pick out a dress for the soiree tonight? The Carlyles will be attending, you know…" That had been the most recent visit, and, as usual, Helene had gabbled on about nothing, oblivious to her daughter's terror. Typical, which was why Lorelei had taken to spending so much time in the Memory Palace.

Lorelei held her weapon at the ready, using the proper's shooter's posture Mr. Smith had drilled into her. The boogeyman could be anywhere in here, and she wanted to get the jump on him, subdue him, bend him to her will. _Why have you been watching me_? she desperately wanted to ask. _Who are you?_

A flicker of sudden movement caught her eye. She whirled on her heel, pointed…_too late_. The dark, hooded figure pounced, a nightmare come to horrible, vivid life, right before her eyes. In his right hand, as he almost always did, he held that long, wickedly sharp blade. And he used it at its intended purpose, swinging it in a flashing arc toward her head, her exposed neck. The weapon smashed into a thousand pixels, which would have been her own blood if the thing had been real…and then vanished entirely.

"_Simulation terminated. Replay?"_

The cool, distant female voice of the sim's AI announced it before Lorelei could. Frustration welled up in her like water behind a crumbling dam. Tears stung her eyes. No matter how hard she tried, how diligently she trained, the faceless man was always one step ahead. He knew her better than she knew herself. Lorelei angrily flung away the Asgari pistol, which didn't have live ammo anyway, from her hand, hearing it clatter away somewhere down the now-empty hall.

"I'll find you. If it's the last thing I ever do, I'm gonna track you down, you bastard," she said to no one in particular, voice trembling.

~~s~~

"Ah. I'm glad I caught you here, Agent Smith. I wanted to get an update on Lorelei, since I'm finally out of meetings," Secretary Delacourt said, Manolo heels smartly clicking across the floor. The training facility's doors slid shut with a brief _whoosh _behind her. "She's in the sims again, isn't she?"

The whole time Lorelei had been engaged in her practice session, Garrett Smith had been carefully observing her from the hidden platform over the VR simulation room. It wasn't technically spying…she knew full well he was there…and yet, even after knowing her for five years, he always felt strangely guilty for doing so, as if there was something secret going on in her world to which he should, and would, never be privy. "I don't try and stop the flow of a river, Secretary," he mused aloud, "but I can attempt to harness its energy properly. She is still coping with her traumas, and she must deal with her anger and frustration. This is a healthy way for her to do so, and I must say, she's coming along very well. Besides, whether you like it or not, self-defense is an essential skill for her."

Delacourt joined him on the observer's balcony, and they both peered down at Lorelei, who had begun to pace back and forth, muttering something under her breath which neither of them could hear behind the thick, soundproof glass. "Indeed. It's not a talent I'd have picked for her, though. Why can't she spend as much time and effort practicing her violin, or getting to know people at the parties? Things that will actually help her succeed later in life? Even getting her to wear proper clothes is like pulling teeth. I know I enjoyed those things when I was her age, but no, she'd rather be in here, playing soldier…"

The big man chuckled, a surprisingly jolly sound from someone of his bearlike size and build. "But you see, she is _not _you. She is her own person. Believe me, she can be stubborn when she wants to. I've met Russian mafiosos and hardened jihadi terrorists less stubborn than this girl," Smith said with a wry smile. Almost playfully, he added, "I wonder where she gets that from?"

"Don't remind me." Delacourt wished it were happy hour; she'd spent most of the day in tedious contract negotiations with an Armadyne subsidiary and felt like a glass or two of Pinot right about now. The fact that her niece was skiving off a ballet lesson to shoot at ghosts made the craving even worse. "How is she, really? Still the same, or getting better, do you think?" Every day, she asked him some variant of this question, always hoping she might finally get the answer she wanted.

"Ah." The humor disappeared as quickly as it had come, and his face took on its usual stoic, pensive cast. "I am no analyst…I leave those matters strictly in Dr. Roi-Schultz's capable hands…and yet, if you want my honest opinion?" Smith looked down at Lorelei, who had retrieved her pistol and reset the sim for simple target practice. "Jessica, she's a very special child. Sensitive, for sure, and so intelligent for her age. But she has a fire burning inside her too...and it's easy to see why, knowing her composition. Maybe it was there before the Incident but that surely did nothing to quench it. She needs an outlet for that side. You can have her take ballet and violin lessons all you like; they won't do for her what this does. Look. She's enjoying herself," he said, gesturing down at where Lorelei was hitting mark after mark. "Children, normal children, go through enough without bearing any added burdens. This one has enough for ten."

Delacourt couldn't really argue with him, and that was what irritated her. Lorelei's road to recovery had not always been a smooth one. There were days when her niece seemed perfectly normal, sweet, even, like the innocent little soul who had once dreamed of unicorns and tea parties and dress-up time. Then there were what she'd come to think of as the stormy days. When Lorelei kicked or punched her classmates, acted out defiantly in public, or locked herself into her room. Lately there had been a lot more of the latter than the former. "I know you and Perine are doing everything you can for her, and the fact that she's come so far already means the world to me," she told him, emotion choking her words. "It's just…I wish there were something _I _could do. Lorelei just doesn't listen to me. When I have dinner with her, or take her to an event, it's like we're having two different conversations. If I ask her about school, or her friends, she shuts me out. It's as if she's a teenager already, but she's only ten, for God's sake." Delacourt almost wanted to laugh at that. "Isn't there something I can do? I'm not her mother, and she has her own set of issues with Helene, yet I feel as if I'm missing something. What is it, Smith? Help me here," she practically begged him, the frustration seeping into her normally cool, collected voice.

"Are you seeing her tonight?"

"_Absolument_. We'll be headed home in my aircar from here. I have to have a little talk with her…why are you looking at me that way?" Delacourt frowned, not sure where he was going with all of this talking in circles.

Smith gave her the kind of serene, knowing smile that she always associated with the faces of saints in long-forgotten church frescoes. "If I might be so bold, simply let her be. At least for tonight, as an experiment. Let her do most of the talking; any blind man could see something is bothering her, and if I've learned anything as her mentor, it's that Lorelei will open up when she wants to. 'Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.' Do you know who said that?" he asked.

"I couldn't begin to guess." Literature had never been her forte. "Aristotle?"

"You're in the right era. Lao-tze. Studying his work, I'm always reminded, and humbled, at how little I really understand about the world. Even after nearly two hundred years of life," Smith said, looking down fondly at Lorelei as he did so, "there are still a good many things that reignite my sense of wonder. Lorelei has done that. She is special indeed, and I'm privileged to know her. Even on the days when, shall we say, she tries even my patience."

The Defense Secretary didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was precisely the kind of conflicted dilemma she dealt with daily. "She has a real knack for that. I only wish she possessed a few more, well, feminine qualities. If only she could dance, or sing, half as well as she shoots. My God, when that girl sings, one can almost see the paint peeling from the walls."

They both laughed, grateful that the girl couldn't hear them.

"I take it she hasn't met up with 32 Alpha, or his thugs, since the night of," Smith said after the light moment had passed. He never seemed to mention Agent C.M. Kruger by name, as if the very act could summon the volatile South African from wherever he happened to be. "She seems rather obsessed with him even after the wipe. Dreams, you know. The other day, she told me she had one in which I was white, and," his nostrils flared in indignation, "had a bloody beard, and that terrible accent." Nothing ever got to Garrett Smith, and brought out his vitriol, quite like being likened to his notorious fellow Gen 1 agent. "Can you imagine? I thought Dr. Roi-Schultz had cracked that particular nut."

In all honesty, Delacourt had as well. Lorelei's memory wipe had been constructed so that she would not remember anything associated with the Incident, Kruger, or anything that had happened on her fifth birthday. Nevertheless, as Perine had warned, the subconscious was a slippery eel indeed. There was always the chance that something would remain after even the most careful wipe. Clearly, as evidenced by Lorelei's determination to play war games and dress in fatigues instead of skirts, a piece or two had stubbornly clung on. At the very thought of Kruger, Delacourt couldn't help but wince. "I've sent him into death trap after death trap for the past few years, Agent Smith. Congo, East Turkestan, that awful mess in Chechnya. As you well know, he not only survives those situations, but seems to rather enjoy himself in the process. That being said, keeping him busy also keeps him far away from Lorelei." She smirked, seeing Smith's barely disguised distaste at the idea of Kruger harassing the girl. "As for his men, I've split them up, remember? Agent Drake now has his own command, and he hand-picked Agent Crowe to fly that new _Rook_-class ship. They haven't caused me nearly so much trouble without their leader to get them into unnecessary mischief, and they're doing quite well. Besides, you could say I actually owe the two of them."

"You could just get rid of those three troublemakers, especially 32 Alpha, permanently. The man is an accident waiting to happen again. Did you ever think of that?" The calmness in Smith's voice was gone; cold, hard steel took its place. His dislike for the Oryx Squadron was an open secret, but for some reason he had never divulged, he especially loathed Kruger.

She paused. The thought _had _occurred to her more than once…especially the night of the Incident, when she wished she could have strung Kruger up by his balls…yet Delacourt knew that was impossible. "Agent Smith, you of all people should know why that won't happen," she explained, giving him the most benign expression she possessed. "The bureaucracy alone, and the CCB's sheer need for manpower, prevent us from discharging any veteran agent. You've seen Agent Kruger's files; you know what he's done, and still, he's with us."

"Like bloody syphilis," Smith muttered darkly. "Can't get rid of the bastard."

"For those without med-bays, yes, that's an apt metaphor. However, with at least a dozen different hacker cells, insurgencies, and assorted Earthbound deviants occupying my plate on any given day, not to mention being Lorelei's _de facto_ mother, I hate to admit this, but I can always use someone like Agent Kruger to clean up messes," Delacourt said, a strange gleam in her eyes. "He is nothing if not efficient. You read the Kuala Lumpur report from last week, I take it?"

He had. A raid in the city; six gun runners and one of their female associates dispatched in the most brutal ways imaginable. "The man is about as subtle as a piano dropped from the sky, isn't he?" Smith asked rhetorically. "He lacks finesse." As he spoke of Kruger, he carefully studied Lorelei, wondering if he wasn't seeing another manifestation of the hated 32 Alpha before his very eyes as the girl mercilessly picked off targets.

"I pay _you _for your finesse and wisdom, Agent Smith," Delacourt reminded him warningly, "and Kruger for his respective talents. I have kept the two of you apart as per our agreement. You'll never have to work with him again. Let him do what he does on Earth; I'll continue to trust you to help Lorelei."

That much _was _true; aside from seeing him across crowded rooms a few times at official CCB functions, Smith had not crossed paths with Kruger in a very long time. He could only hope that would continue to hold true. "Very well," he said, tight-lipped and obviously agitated despite his collected facade. "I see she has completed her sim. It might be time to get her before she goes off chasing her phantom again."

Delacourt touched her wrist comm, syncing it with the PA system in order to speak to her niece. "Lorelei, _ma Cherie, _it's time to go. Come up here; we're leaving now."

Below them, Lorelei looked up, raised her arms triumphantly, and smiled, as if to say, _Look, I did it!_

"That's very good. Leave the gun behind. Don't even think about sneaking it home the way you did last time. You nearly gave poor Amelie a short-circuit."

Smith glanced at the Defense Secretary sideways. That bit was apparently news to him, though the smirk on his face told her he wasn't the least bit surprised. "Remember what I said," he said softly. "Tiny drops of water to wear down that mountainside, Jessica."

"I'll try not to think of my niece as a mountainside," she answered wryly as Lorelei made her way up the staircase and to them on the platform. "Tomorrow, same time? You're headed home now too, I believe?"

For a man who was chronologically pushing two hundred, Agent Smith was working awfully long days, shadowing Lorelei from dawn until dusk on most of them. However, as a Gen 1, he had the gifts of patience, endurance and fortitude to go along with his already strong constitution, and he had never once complained. "I am. I'll be sure and meditate on what I can do to help her along. Sadly, though, I never learned to sing or dance. You'll have to find someone else for that, I'm afraid," he joked, gathering his jacket and pulling it on.

"Someone else for what, Mr. Smith?" Lorelei had joined them, panting. She wore the smallest size tunic and pants available in the training center, which was still much too large; the effect was always comical. With her sleeves rolled up and feet stuffed into boots, she looked as if she were auditioning for a CCB agents' panto night. Garrett Smith tried not to smile.

"Your aunt and I were just talking about how well you did in there with that pistol. And how it might be time for you to learn rifle as well," the big man said, deliberately poking the elder Delacourt's sensibilities now but knowing how much it would please the girl.

The look Jessica shot him said _We'll discuss this in our conference tomorrow_ wordlessly.

"Wow. That is so cool," Lorelei exclaimed, clapping her hands together. Then, remembering her formal manners, she added, "I mean, thanks, Mr. Smith." She bowed from the waist as he had taught her, and he did likewise.

"We'd better head out, _cherie," _Delacourt said stiffly, stepping in and desperately trying to change the subject from anything martial. "I had Henri prepare that ratatouille you always liked," she told Lorelei.

"But I wanted meat," the girl protested. "Can't we have that lamb dish again?"

Delacourt looked to Smith as if to ask, _You see what I have to deal with? _"Very well. I'll call ahead and see what he can come up with," she acquiesced, tapping her comm and remembering Smith's advice to let things go.

"That sounds so _lekker_!" Lorelei squealed in delight. When the adults stopped, stared at her, then each other, she frowned. Lorelei wasn't used to seeing either of them at a loss for words. "Did I say something bad?" she asked hesitantly.

"No. It's just…" Delacourt picked her next statement very carefully. "Wherever did you hear that word?"

"I dunno." Lorelei studied her boots. "On TV, maybe? Or a movie?" She fidgeted; at this age she was in near-constant motion. "Can we go? I'm really hungry after all that."

"Yes, we'll go." Delacourt turned to Smith and politely shook his hand. "Thank you for everything, Garrett. I'll see you tomorrow." She yawned. "Another day awaits. No rest for the wicked."

"Always, Jessica." He returned the handshake and smiled. To Lorelei, he said, "I'll see you bright and early, Miss Delacourt. Get a good night's sleep and eat your vegetables."

It was there for just a split second, but Smith noticed: when he mentioned sleep, an involuntary shudder, and flinch of the eyes, passed across Lorelei's face. As she and her aunt departed, he waited a moment more on the now-deserted platform overlooking the sim.

"Replay," he ordered the VR construct tersely through his own comm. "Show me what she was chasing."

As with all the technology on the torus, the response was near-instantaneous. The hooded figure before him was vaguely defined, and appeared to be more wraith than solid flesh, but Smith would know the picture of Kruger anywhere. Lorelei had been chasing him again. And her mind was stitching even more details on what had once been a blank canvas. That disturbed him to the core; he would have to have a word with Perine.

"That's enough," he snapped, and the holo disappeared. The ramifications were dire, and he needed time to meditate on them.

_If Lorelei is seeing Kruger more and more, how is that even possible? Why hasn't she told me about it? And, for God's sake, what in the world is that doing to her mind?_

Still, he had to smirk even through his disturbed state. The girl hadn't figured out that the sim was rigged against her. Yet.

_To Be Continued_


	2. I Hate Myself For Loving You

**Chapter 2**

As the sleek aircar shot toward home, Jessica Delacourt sat quietly, waiting for the right moment to try and break the ice. The girl before her could be as unpredictable as the massive hurricanes that regularly ravaged coastal cities on Earth. So much about her niece's development post-Incident had been chaotic and random, though her own efforts, as well as Garrett and Perine's, to restore order and regularity seemed to be bearing at least some fruit_. At least she's not mute anymore, or having those horrible screaming fits._

For the time being, Lorelei likewise said nothing; she sat with her face pressed to the window, looking out into the darkening artificial twilight over the immaculate lawns and mansions. "Are you mad at me?" she asked softly without making eye contact, and for a second, her aunt didn't realize she was being spoken to.

Jessica was taken aback by the question. If she wanted to answer honestly, yes, there were inordinate things to be angry about when it came to Lorelei. The girl's rebellious streak, which had been amusing enough when she was younger, was now a festering thorn in her aunt's side. Fights at school, talks with alarmed parents of classmates, and covering up Lorelei's borderline-illegal hacker pranks had all become regular items on her agenda. But she remembered Garrett Smith's urgings, and delicately reined in her irritation. "I'm not mad at all, _cher_,_" _she said all too unconvincingly. It was difficult enough not to turn up her nose at Lorelei's worn CCB fatigues, tangled blonde hair, and sweaty skin. _She should be wearing a designer dress, or at the very least, her school uniform. Not that dirty old thing. _She forced a smile anyway. "Did you…have fun in your sim today?"

"It's not supposed to be fun. I'm supposed to be learning. That's what Mr. Smith keeps telling me." Still, no eye contact.

That was something else which deeply troubled Jessica: Lorelei had once been a vivacious, outgoing, loving child who had never met a stranger. The girl who'd emerged in recent years was still puckish in her own way, yet had turned uber-serious, like she was fighting battles much more intense than learning Rostand plays or Beethoven sonatas. Jessica had known for a long time now that there was something her niece never told her…or anyone else, for that matter. Something that troubled her so deeply as to make her climb up on the roof at night or seek other forms of private solace. Whatever dark secret it was, no one had been able to extract it yet. "I'm glad you and he are getting on so well," Jessica said, deftly changing topics. "How was your session with Dr. Roi-Schultz today?"

Lorelei's nose wrinkled. That had always been one of her unique tells when she didn't like something or someone, and she had never bonded with her therapist the way she had Agent Smith. "Fine," she answered, vague as always when it came to her counseling. "She showed me a bunch of pictures today and asked me what I thought they looked like. They all looked like ink to me, except for one which sorta resembled Godzilla eating a cow, I guess."

"And what did she say?"

"Nothing, really. She says there are no wrong answers for that kind of test."

_As long as you didn't say "a Raven," or maybe "an Oryx," I suppose I can live with that. _"There aren't," Jessica agreed. She could remember her first psych evaluation with Rohrschach tests; it was strange how such antiquated methods were still used, just like the mountains of physical paperwork coming in and out of the offices. "You look so tired, _cherie_. Perhaps you should get to bed early tonight instead of staying up." She knew she was treading on thin ice here, trying to press the issue with Lorelei, but it didn't matter. _Something _had been happening at night when her niece slept. Jessica was no fool; ten-year-old girls didn't develop dark circles under their eyes for no reason, and they certainly didn't climb out onto a roof if all they were dreaming of was riding unicorns and picking daisies.

Another tell: Lorelei flinched ever so slightly as if a sudden chill had gone through the aircar. "I have to study for my algebra exam and finish _Great Expectations_," the girl said with a shrug, only slightly more convincingly than when she'd informed everyone at the garden party last week how much she loved escargot.

"I see." Jessica regarded her niece carefully. Lorelei had never been much of a liar; her psychological weapon of choice was rather the withholding of information. Lies by omission, as it were. Even so, when Lorelei did get to talking, which was rare these days, the words came out like a gushing torrent, completely uncensored and unrefined. Often she could be harsh or even abusive. Not the kind of genteel language one expected from a young, educated lady descended from Founder Generation stock.

_Just like him. Like Kruger. One drop of poison, it seems, can taint an entire barrel of clean water. I can't ever get him out of my head…_

The aircar had begun its gentle descent, an arc directly above what had to be among the grandest residences in Sector 6: a sprawling but tasteful Mediterranean Revival occupying ten acres. The lights sparkled fantastically now that it was dark, and Delacourt, like her niece, couldn't help but be enchanted by the home the two of them shared. It was a wonderland both she and Lorelei could appreciate together, with its immaculately kept hedge maze, butterfly garden, and Roman-style marble pool, among many other sensory delights. Sadly, though, those times of bonding had been rare as of late. With all her various groundings, Lorelei had spent more time in her room than any other space on the property recently…and that showed no sign of changing any time soon.

Jessica cleared her throat. "Look at that, home already. Why don't you head to your room, get freshened up? I'll see you for dinner at seven thirty."

"Okay. If I get all my homework done, and do my weekly assignments for Mr. Smith and Dr. Perine, can I go back in the sims tomorrow? Please?" Lorelei begged as the vehicle landed softly on the helipad.

That was another thing Jessica had come to understand about the girl, though it was nearly a foreign concept from her own perspective. Positive rewards, not negative reinforcement or punishments, worked like a charm. _No one ever had to force me to study, or to practice what was good for me, or network with like-minded people. Here I am resorting to training my own niece like a dog. _Then she remembered Garrett Smith's statement, and the truth inherent in it. _She is not you. _Just for tonight, she'd let it go. The grime could be washed away, clothes changed, hair brushed…but if Lorelei got in one of her moods, sometimes it might take a day or two to die down. If she was in a good mood, though, the same might be true. "Yes. On one condition: that you inform me exactly when you go, and that Agent Smith knows as well. No more running off. Do you understand, _cher_?"

"Yes, _Tante _Jessica." In that moment, she almost seemed like the old Lorelei, with a bright grin across her little face and a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes. "Race you inside!" Unfastening her safety harness, she bolted out the aircar door, tearing across the lawn, all the while knowing that her aunt never ran _anywhere_ and that she was sure to win.

"Is everything all right, Madame Secretary?" It was Ricard, one of their butler droids, who spoke from his place at the landing pad. His mechanized voice was level as always. His class was individually programmed for each owner's specifications, and, having owned him for years now, she almost imagined she could detect a note of concern. _What am I talking about? He's a droid. That's ridiculous; I'm just tired and upset._

"_Tres bien_," she answered coolly, watching Lorelei beelining her way toward the mansion. The same thought danced its way back across her mind, and she addressed the servant more sternly than she intended to. "Have Henri bring up some of that Pinot from the cellar. The 2008 should do nicely."

~~s~~

The dining room, like every other part of the villa, reflected its owner's personality: elegant, refined, tasteful, not a single item out of place or style. In keeping with the architecture, it had the perfect blend of modern and vintage Mediterranean decor, with a long, exquisite marble and glass table, hand-blown glass chandelier, and a Picasso tastefully framed above the fireplace. In a space large enough to park four aircars comfortably or host a dinner party for a hundred, the fact that it was just the two of them sometimes unnerved Jessica. Yes, there were the nights when Helene joined them, or perhaps a friend or business associate, but those had grown less common as Lorelei's brooding side emerged. No one wanted to have dinner with a girl who might dazzle guests with her wit and charm one night, or, if she was in a bad mood, fling potatoes _au gratin_ at them while giggling maniacally.

Tonight, it was hard to say just what she might be thinking or feeling. Lorelei had been quiet through most of the three-course dinner, devouring her portion of the rack of lamb with gusto following her training session. Jessica watched the girl going at her third helping, and wryly smiled to herself. One thing the designers had certainly gotten right was Lorelei's metabolism. She could eat anything she wanted, and never gain so much as an ounce of unwanted fat. Not every Elysian was so lucky, though the ones that weren't all had med-bays. That was one thing the Founders had all agreed upon: that everyone who could afford to live on the torus should at least look elegant and gorgeous.

"This is so delicious," Lorelei said through a bite of meat. "Can I have some more, please?"

"What did I say about talking with your mouth full?"

"Um…that I shouldn't?"

"_Oui."_ Jessica nodded curtly. Table manners were one more thing that had to be constantly reinforced, along with the other social graces which were such a stumbling block for Lorelei. At least she had changed for dinner, swapping the sweaty tunic and pants for a simple but pretty knee-length indigo swing dress over silver tights with leather Mary Janes. "That color suits you. Brings out your eyes. Perhaps you should wear it more often."

Lorelei grunted and shoved another hunk of meat into her mouth as if to avoid answering. It was difficult for her aunt not to protest: in addition to personally being a vegetarian, just the way the girl ate reminded her far too much of Kruger. _Precisely what I need, a miniature version of that barbarian. Am I being paranoid, or do I just have 32 Alpha firmly on my mind right now? _It wasn't the only trait of his that had insidiously emerged in her over the past few years like some hidden cancer. The fights, the aggression, the moodiness; all were suggestive of Lorelei's unusual heritage. Jessica had fought over it many times with Perine, and the psychiatrist had always insisted that nurture, and not nature, would prove dominant in the end. Five years later, and the Defense Secretary was still waiting.

"I can't wait for next week. Since it's school holidays, Mr. Smith says I can start rifle shooting if I do all my exercises and assignments." Lorelei put down her fork and knife, grinning at the very thought of more time in the sims. "Isn't that cool, _Tante _Jessica?"

She must have been lost in thought; it took her a moment to react. "Oh. How interesting," she said absently, stifling a yawn. "It seems as if you're spending a lot of time there as of late." _When you should be practicing your ballet and violin_, she thought, but held her tongue, still heeding Smith's advice.

Across from her, Lorelei cocked her head curiously. "It's the only thing I'm really good at. Or that I enjoy," the girl explained, digging into the cream custard bowl Ricard set before her.

That part was just half-true. Lorelei was no prodigy, but capable enough at her music and dance lessons; it was rather the fact that she chose to ignore practice in favor of getting sweaty and dirty playing games which Jessica had never understood. She sighed deeply. _I've been too lenient with her. I know I can't shadow her all the time…that's why I hired Agent Smith…but she should be learning the right kinds of skills. One day she'll hopefully be doing _my_ job, or at the very least, an upper-level CCB position. She's not going to be out shooting at terrorists and crawling in mud-holes. For God's sake, she's a young lady_. _It's time she started learning to behave like one._

"Mmph." Lorelei looked up from her custard bowl; she'd devoured the entire dessert in seconds. "May I please have some more? That is so yummy."

"I think that's enough for one night, _cher_. You know what happens when you eat too much before bedtime. Everything in moderation."

"Okay. But there'll be leftovers tomorrow, right?" The servant droids were clearing away the dishes and uneaten food as Lorelei licked her lips.

Jessica took a deep breath. This seemed as good a time as any to have the long-delayed heart to heart with her niece; Lorelei had eaten a full meal of all her favorites and held onto the promise of going back to her beloved war-games. It had been a Good Mood night for a change. "I suppose there will. Now, before you head off to your room to finish your homework, there's something I've been meaning to speak with you about. Henri, Ricard, _allez_."

"Oh no…what did I do this time?" Lorelei gulped, nervously watching the droids leave the room. She knew from experience that when her aunt started speaking French, nothing good ever became of it. Usually it preceded some lecture about minding manners or not fighting in school, though she hadn't had any infractions in two weeks or so. In her chair, she squirmed uncomfortably.

"You've done nothing wrong," began Jessica reassuringly. "I don't want you to think I'm the bad guy, _mon couer_. Just because I'm showing concern, and love for you, doesn't make me your enemy. Agent Smith cares about you too, and so does Dr. Roi-Schultz. But they are not your family. I am, and I want what's best for you. Do you understand that?" she said as gently as she could, bracing for the backlash that was sure to come.

"Um…I guess so," Lorelei mumbled, looking as if she would rather be anywhere else at that moment, a little animal caught in a trap and hearing a hunter's footsteps. "I didn't mean to make you mad."

Jessica shook her head vehemently. "I'm not mad. What I'd like you to try and see from my perspective. I think it's wonderful that you're doing so well in your self-defense training. It's an important skill. However, a well-rounded person has many skills, and she needs to work on all of them. Think of our torus, our home. What would happen if we put all our effort and resources into just one sector at the expense of the others? Where would that leave the rest of the habitat?"

Lorelei was looking down again, little face drawn into a very Kruger-like scowl. "Mr. Smith says I'm really good at shooting. He says I might even be an agent someday if I keep it up," she stubbornly insisted, ignoring the question. "Why do I need to take stupid ballet lessons if I'm going to do that?"

"Because," said Jessica, steadying her rising temper and giving herself a mental reminder to chastise Agent Smith for putting such wild ideas in the girl's head, "that's just one possibility. Your whole life is ahead of you, Lorelei. I only want to help you succeed." _A few years from now, God willing, I'll be preparing you for possible suitors, and it's never too early to start the process. _"Don't you ever think about anything other than those sims? Meeting some new friends, maybe?" Her frustration was starting to seep through the cracks of her icy composure.

"I _have_ friends, _Tante _Jessica. I've got Mr. Smith, and Esme, and Anila," replied Lorelei confidently. "Not like you. You're always too busy working to have any friends."

The retort was made to sting, and it did, instantly finding the weak spot beneath Jessica's many layers of armor. "That's not a kind thing to say, _cher_," she began, but Lorelei cut her off.

"Who cares? It's true. All you care about is your stupid job. You never make time for me anymore…"

"That is not true," said Jessica coldly, "and you have absolutely no idea what I put myself through, while you're having your silly games and pranks, so that you can enjoy safety and comfort. Do you ever think of anyone other than yourself? How others must feel?" She stood up and glared at her defiant niece. The grueling hours, the sleeplessness, the constant worry…all of them had been a long-dormant volcano inside Jessica Delacourt, which had chosen this very moment to erupt. "I have sacrificed so much for you, young lady, and I get nothing but ingratitude in return. Think about that for a moment." Her voice, normally serene and confident, trembled with the fury she felt.

Lorelei likewise stood, as if wanting to leap across the table. Her scowl deepened, twisting the cherubic features into a lupine snarl. "I think about it all the time. Like how you always lie to me?" she spat.

Out of all the things Jessica might have expected her niece to say, it wasn't this. "I have never lied to you, Lorelei, and I'm hurt that you would even say such a thing," she said coolly.

"You did lie to me. About my birthday that one year. I know something bad happened, and you made me forget it, like a memory wipe. I looked it up on my comm pad. Is Dr. Perine in on it too? Or Mr. Smith?" A moment ago, Lorelei had seemed all but ready to attack. Now, tears welled in her blue eyes. "Why won't you tell me? I need to know!"

Instinctually, Jessica wanted to tell her little niece, her last living descendant, the whole truth. How she, and the Project, came to be. Why it was necessary. How they'd tried, and failed, so many times before she, the apex of a hundred years' research, ever came into existence. Right now was just not the time. "You're too young to understand, _cher,_" she said impulsively, and immediately regretted her words.

"That's what everyone always says," Lorelei sobbed, tears of frustration and anger spilling down her cheeks. "You, and Mr. Smith, and Dr. Perine. You all lie to me, I know it. It's like I'm some stupid baby. Well, I'm not a baby!" she shrieked, smacking her little fist on the table. "I can take care of myself and I don't need any of you!"

"Lorelei…"

But the girl had already sprinted out of the dining room, toward her upstairs bedroom, no doubt, crying her eyes out.

Jessica fought back her own tears, but didn't pursue. Every time she thought she was making progress, breaking through to Lorelei's tender emotional center, and the secrets contained within, one of these storms broke. One step forward followed by two steps back. She was not Lorelei's mother, could never be, and yet she'd assumed the mantle out of necessity and her own sense of duty. _Why can I love her so much and yet be infuriated by her? Is this what parenthood is supposed to be? I was raised by nannies. I can arrange multi-billion credit contracts, protect this torus from all harm, negotiate treaties…why can't I be a mother to her without her hating me for it?_

"Ma'am, are you all right?" It was Ricard the butler droid, who'd returned to clear away the now-cold leftover food on the table.

"I'm not sure if I will be or not." She desperately wanted sleep, yet that was impossible knowing she'd sooner or later have to go upstairs and calm down Lorelei. For the first time in a long while, the Defense Secretary was starting to feel her chronological age. _And there's no telling when she'll let me touch her palm again for a restorative treatment. I'll have to make sure to get in a med-bay before the meetings tomorrow. _"Bring me some of that wine, Ricard. I need it." It was no substitute for the woefully fractured mother-daughter relationship, but it was all she had for the moment.

"As you wish."

~~s~~

Lorelei's arms were getting tired.

She swung the wooden _bokken _over and over against the headboard and posts of her king-size bed, battering both the mahogany finish and the weapon itself. This would be the fourth wooden sword she'd cracked in half this month, she realized. It didn't matter; she could get another. Mr. Smith always said she needed to let her anger out, not keep it inside…and this was usually how she chose to do it, by taking her whacks at the furniture, all the while imagining the faces of her aunt, Dr. Perine, or the mean kids in class as she did so.

They just didn't understand. No one did. Well, maybe Mr. Smith did, sometimes. Only he wasn't here right now.

_Thwack. Thwack._

On the nightstand beside her bed, the little stuffed oryx sat patiently, watching her outburst with his one remaining button eye. Lorelei had grown out of dolls and toys for the most part, yet Orson, as she called him, remained. There was something about his musty, threadbare presence that comforted her to no end. Even taking a deep breath against his patchy fur made her more comfortable.

Panting, sweating, Lorelei sank to one knee, making eye contact with the beast. "What are you looking at?" she asked him. "Would you rather I used a real sword? Then I'd cut you up too along with the bed, you know. Make some yummy oryx steaks. Mmmm."

As always, Orson remained silent, though she almost imagined she saw sympathy in that black, shiny eye of his.

She had bolted the door to her room, wirelessly reconfigured the lock so that her aunt would take at least a while to get in, and even shut down Amelie, her attendant droid. Right now Lorelei just wanted to be alone.

With the _bokken _still in hand, she climbed up onto her bed, face up, looking up at the ceiling. She desperately wanted to tell someone, anyone, about the true way she felt about the dark man and his nocturnal visits. How she had come to fear and crave them at the same time. The wonderful, terrible feeling that flooded her when his hand met hers. It all had something to do with her fifth birthday, she knew somehow. Dr. Perine might analyze her dilemma to death, Mr. Smith was sure to offer nothing but enigmas, and her aunt?

"She just doesn't get it, Orson. I bet she never had to deal with some strange guy in a cloak coming to see her all the time," Lorelei said out loud, more to herself than the battered toy. "And she wants me to be somebody I'm not. It's always 'don't do that' or 'stop it' with her, or making me take all these classes I hate. I wish she'd just let me…" A deep sigh. "Be myself."

And that was the darkest, deepest part of her fantasy, the one she'd never told anyone else. _The boogeyman actually understands me. When he touches me like that, it's like everything is okay, and I feel better, like I was meant to do that. That is so weird, and creepy…didn't adults always tell me not to talk to strangers?_

It was getting late, and Lorelei didn't feel the least bit tired despite a long day at school, a training session afterward, and a solid fifteen minutes swinging the wooden sword. Besides, if she went to sleep, _he _might show up. She shuddered with a curious mixture of dread and eager anticipation.

She needed to burn off the nervous energy somehow. That was one thing Mr. Smith had taught which Lorelei had come to greatly appreciate: when you were too busy being active, the mind could not be occupied with excess worry or fear. Hopping off the bed, she paced, still holding the splintered _bokken._

_ I could do some more exercises. I could climb out on the roof…but I might get caught, and _Tante _Jessica would be even more mad at me. Or…_

A thought struck her. Rummaging in the messy drawer underneath where Orson sat, Lorelei dug around, looking. She pulled out the old model Dragonfly pad, the one she'd stashed away years ago. Her aunt regularly had to confiscate the girl's beloved hacker equipment, yet somehow this one had gone unnoticed, perhaps because it was so obsolete. "I know just who I can talk to. I just hope he's around," said Lorelei, booting up the device and hearing its familiar start-up chime. Years ago, in the hospital, she'd found a scrap of paper with a string of numbers on it…and a name. J.F. Drake. After some research, and even more trial and error, she'd discovered it was a comm frequency, though an unusual one. The first time Lorelei had simply texted a message (_Hello, my name is Lorelei Delacourt, and someone gave me this code)_ to the set of numbers, and waited.

The response had been nearly instant. Though J.F. Drake, whoever he or she was, had insisted on anonymity, they had corresponded semi-regularly. It was like having a pen pal, of sorts; that was how Lorelei thought of it. She'd told the mystery person about her school, her cares, her worries, even her deep fear of the boogeyman. Her aunt, of course, would have grounded her for life had she known about the connection. That was why Lorelei had kept it such a closely-guarded secret. She liked to think her secret friend was some kind of spy, or maybe a sleeper agent on Earth. That had to be why they never went by anything but a last name. So far she had never found anyone named Drake in the CCB or Earth databases…which only intrigued her more.

**Ru arnd? **Lorelei texted rapidly, fingers flying across the screen, **Realy nd 2 talk if ur there.**

And she waited.

Putting down the Dragonfly, Lorelei went doggedly back to work, making every swing count.

_To Be Continued_


	3. Two Jokers, A Knave, and a King

Chapter 3

**Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay; I have been quite busy. Thanks as always to the Wrecking Kru for their outstanding support. I know the chapter ends sort of abruptly, was gonna make this one but decided on two. **

"You guys will never guess where I am."

Drake felt a little foolish like he always did while essentially talking to thin air; the wrist comm was recording a holo even as he spoke, and the result would be sent home through an encrypted channel. This had become a tradition of sorts, though, and he was determined to continue it. Besides, the kids absolutely loved the things. He forced a broad grin and continued.

"Once upon a time, this was the tallest building in the world. Look it up on that Project-a-Pal toy of yours if you like, eh? I know it's not the tallest anymore, there's the one in Singapore and that other one in Frankfurt, but…"

He looked down. It would be a hell of a long way to fall. Good thing he didn't plan on falling.

"…anyway, I'm getting off track here. It's still damn impressive. The torus is so bright. I can't tell you _exactly_ where I am now, you know the rules, right? I should be home within the next week, and when I do, I've got some amazing surprises for you all."

That was always fun, picking out gifts for the kids. For most of his life, Drake had wondered if children were strictly for other people, who didn't get shot at for a living. Now, he couldn't imagine feeling complete without them, even if he saw his offspring all too infrequently.

"Listen, I gotta keep this short. You be good, and help your mother. Stay out of trouble. Eat all your greens." That last part was at Rina's insistence; he hated the stuff himself. "I'll see you soon." He pressed the button to end the transmission.

Though it was well into the night, and he'd just completed a bitch of a week-long assignment in South Yemen, Drake wasn't the least bit tired. At least not for the moment. That was what happened whenever he let Crowe, or worse, Tselios, pick the clubs. They wanted to party nonstop, and that required a second wind.

Dubai was a city that demanded second…and third, and fourth…winds. This particular spot, the Jannat al-Adn, was exclusive, high-end, nearly impossible to get into, and popular with nearly every CCB agent who'd ever lived. Meaning, on a Saturday night such as this, it was jam-packed. The club occupied several of the highest penthouse levels of the Burj Khalifa tower, where Drake's three-man crew had checked in for the evening. He hadn't lied in his message; the skyscraper, while no longer the tallest on Earth, was nothing to sneeze at either. Right now he stood on a balcony just over 600 meters above the ground far below. Though he'd never been the least bit afraid of heights, Drake had to remind himself of this sobering fact.

_Too bad I'm not the least bit sober. Why the fuck would I come here if that's what I meant to do?_

He'd lost count of how much, and what kind of, intoxicants he'd ingested sometime earlier in the evening. This was no hole-in-the-wall in a remote outpost; there was nothing but the finest shit here. It was a fucking buffet of whatever you fancied: uppers, downers, any brand of alcohol known to mankind. High-roller parties all night long, insanely gorgeous, scantily clad women working the floors. The perfect place to visit after a week's worth of hell in the baking sandbox of southern Arabia. Drake smiled to himself. Rina would absolutely kill him if _she_ knew where he was right now.

_That's the beauty of it…she doesn't have to know, does she? It's not like she doesn't have fun on her own when I'm away. Heh._

Drake secretly missed her. She was the best cook he'd ever met…her beef stew was simply to die for…and an excellent, natural mother. Just the thought of her made him click at his wrist comm again. He absently scrolled through the few personal photos he kept on it until he found the one he was looking for: his wife, dusky and beautiful in one of her comfortable patterned sundresses, sitting with their small children in the garden, behind their home in Jozi.

"There you are, boss. You're missing all the fun, you know?"

Crowe, clearly drunker than he looked, lurched out of the beaded curtain divider onto the balcony. In one hand he held an enormous beer mug, and in the other, some gaudy silver Mardi Gras beads he must have taken from one of the cocktail waitresses. He wore his civvies and the kind of shit-eating grin he always got after about five drinks.

"Just getting some fresh air," said Drake. He always felt a little embarrassed about recording his messages home, like it was something he needed to do in private. Even so, he had needed to breathe something other than smoky haze for a few minutes. His men could smoke all they wanted…he didn't give a shit…but the stuff had always made him personally slightly nauseous.

"Ja, boet." Crowe belched and pointed to the holo image. "That the wife and kids there? They're taller every time I see 'em. Kids, I mean."

Drake grinned; even a drunk had to notice something like that. "Jacko's starting school this year. Can you believe that? Five already. Seems like just yesterday he was still in nappies. He's so good with the techie stuff.; picks it up like second nature. Vivy's not far behind. She's a good girl, smart, a lot like her mum. Just as stubborn, too."

"Isn't there a third one now? You and Rina sure been keeping busy," Crowe said, making an obscene gesture with his fingers.

"Tommy. Yeah, he's almost ready for his first steps. Not talking yet, but she says the little bugger's started trying to hump the dog while crawling."

"Just like his dad, eh? A natural-born pervert."

Both agents shared a hearty laugh.

"I still can't believe she's mine," Drake said almost dreamily, looking up at the unusually clear sky through the heat shimmers. Well after midnight, and it was still scorching.

"Who? Rina?" Crowe made another dirty sign, and winked. "I can; you were hopeless from the first time you walked into her place, boet."

"No. The ship," said Drake, and pointed out the landing platform where his pride and joy was currently moored. That had been part of the reason he'd come outside, just to check on her. There were dozens of high-end aircars and shuttles, along with a few military-grade gunships, in and around the Burj Khalifa's hovering docks, but only one _Rook_ ship on this particular night. With his night-vision enhancing implants, Drake could see her clearly even in the darkness: her sleek, lethal form, the custom paint job with the leaping deer silhouette on one side. If the _Raven-_class had been outstanding, these were superlative. "What'd I do to deserve her?"

Both of them secretly knew the answer, though they never openly discussed it. When Secretary Delacourt decided to reward an agent for good service, she never used half measures. Drake and Crowe, in the weeks following the Kgosi Incident five years ago, had found themselves not just in possession of more credits than they knew how to spend, but reassigned to a newly formed Oryx unit with Drake in command. "I saw potential," the Defense Secretary had said tersely when they'd pressed her. It was what went unsaid that told the rest of the story.

_I saw two men who, much as I hate to admit it, saved my niece's life. And I had to find some reasonable, underhanded way to repay that debt._

"I think you're a good boss, Boss," Crowe said thickly, his voice slurred by whatever he'd been drinking.

Whether or not that was true, Drake himself didn't know. Along with Crowe and their new gunner, Tselios, the Oryx Six squad, as they styled themselves, had carried out dozens of assignments and mostly come out unscathed. He had been told, by agents who were in fact sober, that they were now Delacourt's preferred unit for the nastier assignments, especially the ones in the hotbeds of Africa or the Middle East. Drake and his team operated professionally. He got in, killed or neutralized whoever the brass in the Griffins' Nest told him to, then got out without a hitch. Why did the doubts linger? What was he doing wrong?

That was another truth which generally went unspoken: their erstwhile boss' presence, while it could be overbearing, was sorely absent. And whenever Drake got wasted like this, he waxed nostalgic. "Never thought I'd say this, but I miss working for the mouthy old bastard," he mused.

Crowe hardly needed to ask who he meant. "Kruger? Really, boet? You're still thinking about him?" The pilot laughed. "'Course, nothing wrong with that. He's one oke who's hard to fucking forget. 'I just can't quit you' and all that _kak_."

"You can say that again." It was the worst-kept secret in the world; both of them missed the embodiment of unpredictable volatility that was their former boss, not to mention his twisted sense of humor, uncanny ability for sniffing out trouble, and knack for telling filthy stories at parties. Once in a while they ran into him at a place like this, yet Crowe and Drake hadn't been assigned back to the _Raven _in five years. That had been Delacourt's doing too. Maybe, Drake guessed, she wanted to keep the original Oryx Squadron apart to try and prevent another Incident from happening. It had all been an anomaly, though, one out of thousands they had run together. That particular mission had gone so horribly awry because…

_Because of the girl. If she hadn't run away from home, none of that would have happened. Would it?_

Drake still thought about it almost every day, second- and third-guessing himself. Lorelei may have been a Delacourt, with all the weight and implication that name carried, yet he'd come to genuinely like the girl. That was the one dark secret no one, not even Crowe, not even Rina, knew about. His correspondence with her via the back-door channel. It was risky, for sure, since the CCB had doubled down on virtual security ever since the Incident. It seemed to be working much in the same way Lorelei was being kept safe now: hidden in plain sight. Black ops teams like Drake's were strictly off the record. So were their communiqués. At least for now, both of them had managed to keep the exchanges secret, in part thanks to the girl's extraordinary ability at covering up her electronic tracks. The thing that really killed him was the fact that he couldn't reveal his true identity. _Oh, well, at least the little meisie has somebody she can talk to. And boy, does she…_

"…and, I mean, the way he used to smoke, you know, five fucking cigs at once. Remember that?" Crowe slapped him hard on the back, interrupting his thoughts. Apparently the pilot had been Kruger-reminiscing all the while Drake was thinking of Lorelei.

"Yeah." Drake brought himself back to the present moment, which was difficult considering all the shit he'd done tonight. His head swam. "That voice of his, boet. Like nails on a chalkboard even without the cigs, wasn't it?" Kruger's reedy, harsh timbre had never ceased to amuse Crowe and Drake, though they never would have dared say so to his face. "Gotcha now, _boytjie_!" Drake made his deep voice half an octave higher for a passably coarse imitation.

It was all Crowe could do not to lose himself in a fit of giggles; while drunk, he always had the stupidest, girliest laugh. "That's fucking hilarious, boet!" he said through gales of laughter, dropping the beer mug to shatter.

Drake couldn't help himself; he joined in too. Maybe it was the MDMA or whatever trendy lab-made stuff was going around, but the giddiness had him fully by the balls. "Okay, how about another one?" He cleared his throat and mimed drawing an imaginary katana. "We can do this the hard way, or the easy way, girl. Though I'd prefer the fucking hard way, eh?"

If anyone had walked onto the balcony at that moment, or flown by in an aircar, they would have seen two burly CCB agents rolling around in hysterics on the floor, howling like a pair of amped-up hyenas. "Fuck me, Drakey. You need to get your own Vegas comedy show!" Crowe hooted.

"If…if I didn't already have the wife and kids, I might just do that." Even through the euphoric haze he always got going during an all-night party, Drake's thoughts drifted back to Rina and his growing family. _She knows every time I go out, it might be the last. That's what she married. Still, who says I can't have a little fun when I'm off the clock? _

"Good thing he's not here to hear you. If he were, he'd chop your balls off and make you eat 'em, boet." Crowe was wiping tears from his blue eyes.

Drake picked himself up from the floor, and with as much remaining dignity as he could muster, staggered over to the table on the balcony and took a swig of his own half-empty beer. "Yeah, good thing." Kruger had always been the type of guy who loved a good joke…as long as it wasn't on him. Some brash cartel lieutenant in Colombia had made the mistake once of poking fun of the boss' accent and mannerisms to his face. _Jesus, that was a long time ago. _Kruger had been especially inventive with him, using a full compliment of fireplace tools, all fresh from the flames, all inserted into various bodily cavities. Through the screams of agony, Drake could have sworn the little fucker had been trying to apologize.

The truth was, Drake still felt a little strange being called 'boss' by anyone, even after five years. It wasn't that he lacked the experience, or the know-how, for the job. He'd brought his new Oryx team in and out of dozens of missions, in the worst places on Earth, with only minor injuries. Crowe was as solid as ever despite his quirks, and Tselios had proven just as capable. The doubt persisted anyway, a parasite determined to slowly kill its host body.

_You can never get me out of your head, _boytjie_, _Drake could almost hear Kruger's raspy hiss in his ear, as if the man he still thought of as 'boss' were standing right behind him, whispering salaciously. Maybe he was; that damn stealth cloak hadn't been destroyed after the Incident. For all Drake knew, Kruger was listening right now, eavesdropping and waiting for the right moment to jump out from under the cloack and yell 'Boo'. It would be just like him to go and do something like that. "What do you think he's doing now? The boss, I mean?" he asked Crowe, trying to both change the subject and get someone else's perspective on the matter, even if that someone else was shit-faced drunk.

"No idea. Same _kak_ we are, probably." Crowe joined him at the table, leaning heavily against it. "I saw him taking off at that one club in Kyoto a few months ago. You were out with Tselios and I was there watching the ship. Dunno if he saw me, he probably did, but he looked pretty pissed about something." The bald man frowned. "He had a couple new guys with him, too. That huge blond Scandinavian oke with the funny name? I think he's flying the _Raven _now. The fucker. Not that I don't like your ship, boss."

Drake nodded, ignoring the slight. "Hornqvist? Something like that?" He searched his memory, a difficult proposition at the moment. "Everybody called him 'Horny,' which he couldn't stand. I remember him from the academy. Good fighter, pretty smart, just no sense of humor. Like a fucking iceberg, eh? Who's the other?"

"Oh. Didn't recognize him; some buzz-cut guy, also huge. Must be their new gunner."

"So what d'you think the boss was pissed off about?" asked Drake, knowing the question was probably rhetorical.

A dark chuckle from Crowe. "No telling, boet."

Offhand, Drake knew of a few times he'd seen Kruger in a relatively good mood. The times they used to go to Rina's, when she was still in the business. The occasions they went up to his house on Elysium for a _braai_ party or a World Cup match, then sat up all night telling the dirtiest stories imaginable. And…he grasped desperately for some hidden memory…something else that made Kruger happy, too. It was to do with the girl, with Lorelei.

_Fuck it, I'm not taking all this shit next time. I can't think straight._

"Anyway, I haven't talked to him, if that's what you mean. He's not the kind of oke who writes fucking letters or holos, you know." Crowe shrugged and pointed to the beer bottle. "You gonna finish that, boet?"

"No. All yours."

As Crowe pulled at the warm dregs of the lager, Drake looked up one more time at the ship, his _Golden Hind. _She was still there. Good. Still, the thought that he was missing something much more important loomed at the back of his hazy brain.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, gentlemen," came a feminine voice from behind them. It was one of the waitresses, a stunningly lithe raven-haired woman in a gold minidress, stilettos, and not much else. "You're with Agent Tselios, right?"

Drake immediately felt a surge of panic through the cobwebs; their new gunner, while almost too good at his work in the field, could be a wild card when it came to off-duty time. "That's right. Is he okay?" he asked the girl, picturing Tselios passed out in a puddle of his own vomit in one of the toilets.

"I…I think you'd better come with me," she said nervously. "We'll head down to the club; you can see for yourself."

"Shit," Drake muttered under his breath, beckoning to Crowe to come with him. "What's that crazy fucker gotten himself into now?"

"Who cares? It's probably nothing, just more of his usual _kak_," Crowe slurred, stumbling toward the beaded curtain. "At least we can go inside and get some more beer, eh?"

As the two of them hurried downstairs, Drake didn't notice that his wrist comm was blinking **Message Received, Private Sender.**

~~s~~

_Twenty Minutes Earlier_

"…so this chick, see, she walks in on me in the bathroom, and I'm using one of them electric hair dryers to blow myself, right?"

Agent C.M. Kruger was holding a rapt court. Half a dozen agents, including his two teammates, were gathered around the table, along with several of the floor girls who were listening so intently to him they'd momentarily forgotten to deliver drinks to customers.

"And then she asks me, 'What are you doing there?' She wasn't too fucking pleased when I said, 'Heating up your dinner, sweetheart.'" He grinned.

The reaction, as he'd expected, was immediate and raucous. Everyone roared with laughter, and even Kruger chuckled at his own joke. His skills as a raconteur had become the stuff of legend among the CCB. Some of the guys preferred to sit at his table all night rather than enjoy the many other delights the Jannat al-Adn had to offer: the girls, the rooftop pools, the casino, the cornucopia of available narcotics. This last was something Kruger particularly sought out at the clubs.

He had already done several lines of coke tonight, and craved yet more. Sure, there was newer, and even more potent, stuff to be had at these places. Kruger liked to stick with what he already liked…and the strains they had at these high-end clubs were always the best. Not to mention, it was all free. _I gotta hand it to the CCB; they show their best employees a lot of fucking appreciation._

"That was sooo funny!" giggled the girl sitting closest to him. She was, like all the other females present, not wearing much other than a drunk smile. Blonde, stunning body, perfectly arched eyebrows over dilated green eyes. She placed her hand flirtatiously on Kruger's forearm. "You know any other funny jokes?"

"Ja." He leaned in as if to kiss her. "I'm sitting across from one right now."

It took her a moment to pick up on it, but when she did, she giggled even more hysterically. "You are a riot! Oh, my God."

"Yeah, I suppose I am."

More laughs, even from the men. On any other night, Kruger might have followed such a nice piece of ass to her suite, fucked her all night long, enjoyed himself, woken up with no regrets the next morning. Looking her up and down right now, he just couldn't concentrate. For an instant, just then, when she'd touched him, his mind had wandered.

_Am I gonna get that golden thread from her? Fuck, I'm craving that right now._

There were so many things Kruger got cravings for sometimes. Mostly, he could get a fix at one of these exclusive clubs: women, drugs, booze, any brand of cig he wanted. The queen mother of all cravings, though, could only be found in one place. It was risky as hell getting it…the last few times, he'd have sworn he was being watched…but oh, was it worth the risk. Standing there, his hand almost tenderly taking the sleeping girl's in his own-it always had to be when she slept, because of the security around her-and the feel of that elated, orgasmic,soul-shaking thrill coursing through his body…

No cocaine or any other drug could match that sensation. Kruger wanted it. _Needed _it. Had sought it out for five years now, and still couldn't get enough. The golden thread, at least for tonight, was far away. There were other delights to be sampled. He'd just have to find another way to scratch that pesky itch.

"Another round, girl," he ordered the drunk blonde.

"I don't actually work here. I came in with Agent…what was his name? she slurred, hiccupping.

"Just get us some more fucking beers, eh? Castles."

"Okay, okay," she muttered, and as she walked away serpentine, Kruger thought it must be a miracle she didn't trip over her five-inch heels. _Not a bad view, either. I might have use for her yet._

Kruger's squad mates, who also sat at the table, handed her their empties. He'd observed, over five years, that the two of them-Hornberg, the stoic Swedish pilot, and Petrov, the even quieter Belorusian gunner-were good listeners, but hesitated to join in on the fun off-duty. It was like they were afraid of stepping on his toes somehow. Not that he blamed them. They'd heard the stories through the CCB agent grapevines about what always happened to Oryx Squadron members who talked too much.

_Besides, I fucking hate it when someone else upstages me. _

Despite his lingering high from the last line, Kruger was sharply observant of his surroundings. He noticed everyone who came and went from the smoky room. One of the guys, a tall, rangy type with the manner and bearing of a cocky, newly minted agent, had been watching him steadily from across the table for a few minutes now. Dark hair styled in an elaborate faux-hawk, lots of colorful tattoos down both muscular arms, the kind of scruffy beard that spoke to not being able to grow one properly.

_He's no trouble…he's just a fucking kid, for Christ's sake…but he's looking at me like a dog looks like a thick steak. What the fuck does he want?_

"Enjoying the view?" Kruger stretched out to his full, lean height, putting his booted feet up on the table and his arms behind his head. "I got something you can snack on if you're hungry, _boytjie_."

"No, it's just…" The guy's accent was South African, to Kruger's great surprise, with a hint of something else underneath. _Greek, maybe_? "You're Agent 32 Alpha. I've heard about you. You're a fucking legend, man."

Everyone, including the stone-faced duo of Petrov and Hornberg, chuckled at that.

"You want a fucking autograph or something?"

"Better." The kid stood…he was taller than Kruger by at least a few inches, thicker too. "I hear you're a hell of a fighter. Want to go down to Level 119 and hop in the ring? Just for fun, eh?"

_Either this kid has a death wish, or he's fucking insane. _"You got balls, I'll give you that." Kruger grinned. "You gotta make it fucking interesting, though. What's your name, anyway?"

"Tselios." The other flashed a smile with several gold-capped teeth. "I got the perfect stakes in mind…"

_To Be Continued_


	4. Putting The Band Back Together

Chapter 4

**Author's Note: My apologies for not getting to this sooner. As always thanks to the Wrecking Kru for their support.**

Every one of the exclusive CCB clubs Drake had visited over the years had its own unique delights, but most of them had a number of the same features. Breathtakingly gorgeous female staff, infinity pools with stunning light shows, all the premium food, alcohol and drugs a man could ask for…and almost always, a cage-fighting area.

The Jannat al-Adn was no exception. This particular fighting arena, in deference to the comparatively conservative local culture, was more discreetly located than some, but no less active. Through his drunken haze, Drake tried to remember where it was. Level 109, maybe? _Something like that_, he thought as he hurried along as fast as his wobbly legs would allow, Crowe following close behind him. He decided to ask one of the waitstaff droids just to be sure.

"'Scuse me. You wouldn't know where the cages around here are, would ya, boet?" he said, vaguely aware of how slurred his words had become. _Maybe Rina's right…maybe I can't hold my liquor like I used to._

"Of course, sir. Level 119. The lift will take you," the droid answered politely in its neutral voice, tilting its metallic head slightly sideways. "Are you quite all right?"

Drake nodded even if he felt anything but all right. He was drunk and one of his men was, in all likelihood, up Shit Creek without a paddle. "Yeah. Just point me," he ordered, instinctively knowing Tselios was either beating the shit out of someone, or else getting the shit beaten out of _him. _The kid had plenty of balls, just not a lot of self-control or common sense. _Just like me when I was that fucking young and stupid. It's a miracle he's only been shot once on the job._

The two of them followed the corridor where the droid had indicated, nearly having to lean on each other for support. Nobody paid the pair of agents much attention; they were recognized by only a few of the regulars, who were likely just as drunk and high as they were. That was the whole point of coming to a place like this: to leave your troubles behind and forget the fact that you'd be going into another death trap sometime in the very near future.

"_Jesus_,_" _Crowe swore under his breath as they reached the lift. He held his palm over the pad to summon the car. "I'm not gonna remember any of this tomorrow, eh?"

"I seriously fucking doubt it," agreed Drake as the high-speed lift arrived with only the softest _ding. "_That's one of the things the boss used to say. 'If you can't remember it, you musta had a fucking great time,'" he said in a feeble Kruger imitation as he stepped aboard.

Crowe laughed and belched all at once. "Oh, yeah! Like your bachelor party, boet," he said, pushing the correct floor button.

"Ja. How'd that go? I can't remember a damn thing about it."

The lift hurtled downward, though the motion was barely noticeable. Beyond the glass, the lights of Dubai's many high-rises and casinos shone like diamond necklaces.

"Seriously?" Crowe looked as playful as his hardened face would allow.

"I think there was a stripper, but that's just an educated guess," said Drake, shrugging.

The big pilot chuckled wickedly. "That was _me, _boet. It wouldn't be exactly right for your fiancée to do the honors, and we couldn't find anybody else on short notice, so the boss talked me into sticking on a blonde wig and a pink extra-large dress, then giving you a lap dance. 'Course," he teased, "I was already so drunk by then I just went with it, you know?"

"Why am I not fucking surprised?" Drake sighed as the car came to a halt at level 119. "You must have made one ugly woman, Crowe."

"I was, but I got a whole case of lager for my troubles. I think. I don't really remember it so much either, you know?" he said with a drunken laugh.

The doors opened to a sea of partygoers. If Drake had to guess, almost everyone in the club had gathered on this level. The fights were either just getting started, or there was a real barn-burner going on at the moment. They'd have to make their way all the way through the crowd just to catch a glimpse of the cage in the far corner.

"You have any idea who the match is?" Crowe asked an agent they both knew by sight, a rangy Canadian named Thorne.

"Yeah, I think it's two of you guys. South Africans, I mean," the other man said, sounding likewise drunk. "See if you can get a good look through this lot. Lots of betting going on if you want some action."

Drake shook his head. "No, not right now." Any other night he'd have eagerly bet on a cage fight…that was half the fun…but tonight he was just here to hopefully stop his impulsive gunner from potentially getting his ass kicked. Thorne's words began to sink in as he and Crowe pushed through the whooping, cheering crowd. Crowe spoke exactly what Drake had been thinking, nearly having to shout to be heard.

"Who d'you think the kid's up against?" There were a number of active, and highly regarded, South African agents in the CCB; black, white, and every shade in between, and almost all of them, Drake and Crowe included, loved to fight. It was a mark of personal pride for both of them that, behind the Americans, they were the largest nationality represented, and frequently requested for the more dangerous missions. Right now, though, that was the farthest thing from their minds.

"Knowing him and his stupid-ass ideas, probably one of them big okes. Like Maluleke, or maybe Bronkhorst," Drake said, mentally picturing two of their colleagues, one black, the other white, and both huge second row guys in every friendly rugby match they played. Back when Drake had still enjoyed a good cage fight, he'd steered clear of both of them despite his own solid, muscular build. During the rugby matches that had become a tradition at their get-togethers, though, he was at least fast enough to outrun them. He winced, thinking of the last time Bronkhorst had tackled him on the field. It had been a few minutes before he'd seen anything but a galaxy of spinning stars.

"Oh, _shit_."

"You can say that again," Drake muttered without looking up, still thinking of his two huge compatriots and how even the tall, rangy Tselios seemed smallish by comparison.

Someone was tugging at his shirtsleeve, and Drake realized Crowe was doing the tugging. "No, not that. Look who it is."

Even from where they stood, a good fifty meters from the enclosed metal octagon, the two figures were unmistakable. One was their new gunner, Tselios, well over six feet and built more like an American football linebacker than a rugger with his broad shoulders, narrow hips, and massive chest. Blood poured from a forehead gash down his angular face and onto his torso, adding even more color to the dozens of tattoos he sported along with his standard metal grafts. He wore only a pair of garish South African flag shorts and his boots, and looked on the verge of collapse, breathing heavily.

The other was C.M. Kruger.

"Holy fuck," Drake swore as the crowd cheered for their former squad leader. "What's he doing here?"

"You know the boss, boet. He never could resist these places."

Though he was chronologically nearing the double century mark, Kruger was every bit frozen in his physical prime, powerful and strong. As Drake and Crowe made their way closer to the ring, it was as if he hadn't changed a bit since they'd last seen him. Same muscular but lean build, deeply tanned skin, and shaggy, bearded head touched with the slightest hint of grey. He wore his favorite old, ratty pair of PT shorts and stood at the ready, beckoning, as if daring the much younger man to attack.

The crowd was going insane, trading bets on comm pads and egging Kruger on in a dozen different languages to finish the challenger off once and for all. Crowe and Drake exchanged a quick look. They knew better; they'd seen the same scenario played out many times before. _The boss likes to play with his food, _the shared glance said. _He's just getting started._

Kruger didn't fight in the arena as often as he used to, but he still knew how to play up to his audience and put on a brilliant show. As Tselios wheezed in one corner, the older man strutted, raising his arms over his head to engage the patrons. "Is that all the little _boytjie_'s got, you think?" he asked rhetorically, making an obscene gesture.

It wasn't lost on Tselios, who roared in humiliation and anger, charging Kruger. The move was so clumsy, like a lumbering bear's, that Kruger easily sidestepped and leg-whipped his opponent as he passed, dropping him with an thick _oof!_ to the mat.

"You actually think he was stupid enough to challenge the boss?" Crowe asked as the crowd shouted its approval. "Does he even know who he's fucking with?"

"Probably." Drake could remember a time long ago when he was that young and brash, a hammer in a world that seemed to be full of nails that needed pounding. As Tselios absorbed more brutal kicks from Kruger, Drake couldn't help wonder what had changed. Nearly fifty years' service in the CCB, for starters. When you became that intimately acquainted with death, it wasn't something you went looking for voluntarily. _Or maybe it's because I've got a wife and kids now. Boss would probably say I'm getting fucking soft…_

Crowe cheered along with everyone else as the force of Kruger's body, perhaps forty pounds lighter than Tselios', sent the younger man crashing down yet again. "That one's gonna fucking hurt," he said, wincing as if he'd personally felt the blow.

And it would. Drake planned to have a few choice words with his new teammate once both of them had sobered up and regained their senses. As a leader, he knew he'd been more lenient than most, but it just wasn't wise to tempt fate, and there was no worse way to do it then by challenging a Gen 1 agent to a fight. There was a reason guys like Kruger had been alive so long.

"What's the matter, _boytjie_?" Kruger taunted over the prone, battered figure of Tselios. He was clearly enjoying himself; he'd always been a showman and there were no better, more appreciative audienced than the CCB clubs. "Having trouble keeping up with a real man, eh?"

As several knockout Nordic women shouted marriage proposals to Kruger in their native tongue, Drake fought the urge to laugh. Mankind may have changed in so many ways these last hundred years, but some things never did. One of these was the standard _So, I hear you're pretty tough_ come-on in bars around the world. That _had _to have been what Tselios did to get in the ring with the fighting machine that was Kruger.

Tselios staggered to his feet and attempted a knockout blow. On paper, he might have easily dominated the smaller Kruger, but paper didn't matter when you took nearly two hundred years of expertise into account. Kruger's own fist connected with the exposed underside of his opponent's chin, sending him down yet again.

"Boss, you better stop this," warned Crowe, more concerned than excited now. "He's gonna fucking kill himself if he's not careful."

But Drake silently stood his ground, mesmerized by Kruger's fighting ability. Tselios may have been one tough guy, and a capable gunner, but there were lessons he still had to learn, lessons that only came through the school of hard knocks. This was one of them. If it meant Kruger beating him to a pulp, so be it. _I'll make him wait it out overnight before he gets in a fucking med-bay. Then maybe he'll figure out it's a bad idea to mess with Gen 1s_.

The crowd, meanwhile, was lapping it all up. Everyone with a comm was either exchanging bets or instantly sending photos and videos of the bout to their friends on Earth or the torus. Men whooped and screamed, desperate for the match to last longer than a few rounds. One of the gorgeous blondes nearly swooned from the excitement.

_I might see if any of them are interested in some action later on, _Drake thought absently, eyeing the nearest girl even though she was fixated on the combatants. _Rina knows it's just another part of the job…_

Beside him, Crowe reacted along with everyone else to the Muay Thai spinning kick Kruger put on Tselios, a loud _oooh _escaping his lips. He'd always been a fan of the cage fights and had been in more than a few himself. "Did you see that one, boet?" he cried, grabbing yet another drink from a passing waiter droid's tray and swigging at it.

Drake had been too busy eyeing the blonde in the emerald green dress. Besides, he'd seen Kruger fight enough times to last three lifetimes. "He really put the fucking hurt on him, didn't he?" he asked of no one in particular. He wanted Tselios to learn a lesson, but he also needed the kid alive and well for whatever mission they'd draw next.

Nobody was surprised when Kruger launched himself at the woozy, trembling form of Tselios, who'd only begun to rise to one unsteady knee. The legendary 32 Alpha wasn't known for his acts of mercy, though in this case, the sideways kick he smashed into Tselios' exposed jaw almost seemed like one. The bigger man dropped to the mat like a sack of flour and just as unconscious.

The crowd noise had been loud before; now it was deafening. Cheers in a dozen or more languages were heard, along with a few taunts for the loser and more than a few marriage proposals for the winner. The girl Drake had been leering at had somehow removed her lacy thong, which she slingshotted into the ring. Kruger noticed, picked it up, and raised it over his head like a trophy.

"Ladies and gentlemen," boomed the announcer, a squat Saudi, through his auto-mic, "we have our winner!" The device immediately translated the declaration into the native languages of almost everyone present. It wasn't even needed. The patrons had come to see a good fight, and while they hadn't gotten a long one, they had gotten to see the finesse and skill of Kruger, which was better. The victorious agent swaggered, playing to each and every side of the arena.

"I'll see you three later on," he shouted to the thong-thrower and her friends, who all squealed in delight. "Which suite are you in, sweetheart?"

Drake had pushed his way up close to the cage itself, watching with a mixture of amusement and chagrin. He'd almost forgotten Tselios in the process of trying to have a few words with Kruger. _He's got that effect on people. _In between whoops and cheers, he shouted out to his former boss, "Howzit, eh?"

The old familiar slang made Kruger's shaggy head whip around, and when he saw who had spoken, he grinner broadly, exposing those preternaturally white teeth of his. "Drakey! Come to pay your respects?" He had to shout to be heard over the throng of admirers. "What's a fucking ruffian like you doing in a high class place like this?"

He had to laugh; Kruger's sense of humor was as wickedly sharp as ever. "Same thing you are, boss," Drake chuckled; the old habit of deferring to Kruger hadn't gone away. "Enjoying a little R&R."

"It's good to see you, sir," added Crowe, who'd knocked over an entire tray of drinks in his haste to get up close. He nodded in what, in a sober state, might have been deference, but just came off instead like a bobble-head doll gesture.

"So, the two of you and this _poes_," Kruger said, gesturing behind him to the still-unmoving Tselios, who was being attended to by a droid, "you're a team now, right?"

It wasn't a question. Kruger would know perfectly well what had been going on for the last five years. Drake knew that was his way of testing the waters, gathering information. He tried not to stare into Kruger's glinting black eyes. "That's right," he affirmed, "going on, what, five years now?"

"Can't fucking hear ya, boet!"

The crowd noise had only dropped by a few decibels; the momentum fed upon itself. They'd have to get out of this place fast if they wanted to have any chance to revisit old times. "Hey. You got a private room we can use?" Drake asked one of the valet droids adjacent to the ring.

"Of course. I believe the al-Maha suite is free, sir. I'll have it prepared for you immediately."

Kruger had taken a brief moment to strut around the ring once more, basking in the glory and cheers. He lived on that as much as most people lived on water and air. In his shorts and boots, sweating under the lights and grinning maniacally, he was just as Drake remembered him, rugged and ready for anything, even after all this time.

_Some things just never change._

"You got any Castle lager around here?" Crowe asked the droid.

"Of course."

Drake had to smile at that, too. If there was anything that would have put Kruger in an even better mood, it was his favorite beer. "Oh, and one other thing? Make sure our mate there gets up, and that he doesn't get in a med-bay. At least not just yet. Just get him a fucking glass of water or something," he ordered, indicating Tselios, who still hadn't moved. It was gonna hurt something wicked when he woke up, which was the idea.

If droids could have registered any surprise, this one might have. "As you wish," it said neutrally.

"So, where's this al-Maha place? And where's the lager?"

~~s~~

"So, was that your ship I saw parked out there, Drakey? That _Rook _piece of kak?" Kruger leaned back in his plush leather chair, arms clasped behind his head, as relaxed and yet deadly as a tiger in repose. After pushing his way through the throng of fans, he'd changed into a t-shirt, cargo shorts and flip-flops, but still looked ready to hop in the arena for another full ten rounds.

Drake's heart swelled with pride at the very thought of his ship. She'd been his reward of sorts for his role in saving Lorelei, he knew, and he was extremely fond of her. She wasn't the familiar _Raven_, but she was fast, sleek, and had saved his, Crowe's, and Tselios' collective asses more than a few times. "That's her all right," he confirmed, pointing out the floor-to-ceiling windows to where the ship hovered on her mooring pad.

The three of them occupied the plush al-Maha room, twice the size of most people's living rooms even on the torus. Along with the panoramic views of Dubai's skyline, it boasted a holoscreen, Jacuzzi, wet bar, and two attendant droids. At the moment none of these were being used, though, this was simply a chance for catching up, reminiscing, and shooting the shit.

"What did you say you called it? The_ Golden Behind_ or something stupid like that?" Kruger pulled at his third beer, keeping a straight face all the while.

"_Hind. _The _Golden Hind. _You know, like my English pirate ancestor's ship?_" _corrected Drake, forcing down an involuntarily laugh. That had always happened when he'd had too much to drink. He got the giggles, and he talked too much. Some guys got angry, and some, like Tselios, wanted to pick fights. He wasn't one of them. As Rina always liked to point out, he was a happy drunk. "You got the same fucked-up sense of humor you always did, boss."

Crowe sat across from Kruger, stretched lazily out on another of the chairs. "Don't knock that ship, eh? She's not half bad," he said, hiccupping loudly, which prompted more laughter.

The former Oryx squad-mates had been sitting in here for perhaps an hour, speaking of anything and everything except the most obvious and important subject of all. In five years, they hadn't worked together, hadn't spoken much, hadn't even seen each other save for chance encounters on the torus or at clubs like tonight. Every one of them, despite being drunk and high, knew exactly why that was. The fact that no one, including Kruger, had mentioned it, spoke to the strange kinship that had developed over all those decades of working together.

"Still, I'd rather have a _Raven _any fucking day," Kruger was saying, closing his eyes as if to picture his familiar warship. "Even if that Swede I got flying it ain't got any sense of humor like yours, boet," he said to Crowe. "Hell, he hasn't got one at all."

"Thanks, boss. I never thought you noticed," Crowe said proudly.

"I still remember when you put on that wig, dress and heels for Drakey's bachelor party. If that's not a fucking sense of humor, I don't know what is."

Crowe and Kruger both laughed at this, but Drake just frowned. In addition to getting talkative and giddy when drunk, he also became absent-minded. _Something, and I don't mean whatever happened at my bachelor party, is wrong. What the fuck am I forgetting? Some boss I am. _He vaguely remembered the prone form of Tselios, not moving even as the medical droid was nudging him with its mechanical arm. That was it. He'd told the droid to take his gunner to a table and make sure he was okay without putting him in a med-bay. Lesson learned, and all that. In retrospect he regretted it; the younger man had taken a heavy beating, and there was no telling what condition he was in now. Drake cleared his throat.

"Hey, boet," he told Crowe, "why don't you go out and see how the kid is doing?" He always referred to Tselios in those terms even if he had to be at least fifty or so; nevertheless, that made him a baby in CCB agent terms. "Make sure he didn't get back in the arena or some _kak _like that."

"Sure. I'll see what else they got while I'm out there," Crowe said somewhat sarcastically, reluctantly rising from his chair and stretching. "You want me to get Tselios to a med-bay?"

Drake debated for a moment. "Only if he's got a broken jaw or a concussion or something. Otherwise, he needs to learn a fucking lesson. Let him suffer through the night."

Without another word, Crowe left his boss and his former boss alone in the suite.

"He _does _have a broken jaw," Kruger said with a sly wink. "Want to know what else I did to him before you two ever showed up?"

"I'd rather you not say, boss." Drake winced on behalf of his teammate. Kruger was an unparalleled fighter, for sure, and he also loved to humiliate his opponents in creative ways. "You didn't, you know, molest him or anything?"

"He's not my type." Kruger looked almost offended. "I'm surprised he's yours, Drakey. Ugly bastard like that, with all them tatts? And what's he thinking with that pathetic beard of his?"

_God, that's a relief. _"If I had to guess, boss, I'd say he was trying to look like you. He'd never admit it, but you're sort of a hero of his."

"Well, he's fucking failing. Tell him to shave that off." Kruger pulled out a new pack of the cigarettes he'd been smoking the last hour from one cargo pocket, then lit one and took a deep drag. "Ah, that's better," he said, relishing the fresh nicotine hit and closing his eyes in bliss.

Through the windows, the faintest tinge of lighter blue against the deep indigo of the night sky heralded the coming dawn. _How late was it? _Drake wondered. He'd been awake for at least twenty-four hours, not unusual at all for him, but the events of the past week in Yemen, along with the shock of reuniting with Kruger and the beatdown of his teammate, had left him thoroughly exhausted. There was another 24 hours of leave ahead of him, and at least some of that would need to be spent sleeping. He found himself fighting off a cavernous yawn. "You…you don't know where the closest bed is around here, do you, boss?" he asked Kruger drowsily. "Maybe with one of them Scandinavian girls in it?"

Eyes still shut, Kruger shot back, "You're a married man, now, Drakey. What would Rina think of that if she found out?"

"'Lucky Drake,' maybe?" Another yawn.

"You know, boet, you're getting too fucking soft. That's what happens to guys who go for the 'wife and kids' lie. Those two okes I got now, Horny and Petrov, they'd kick your sorry ass from here to Pretoria…"

But Drake hadn't heard this last part, or any of Kruger's outlandish claims that followed. He'd fallen sound asleep atop his chair, mouth wide open and snoring loudly.

Cigarette still dangling from his mouth, Kruger arose from his own chair to crouch beside the form of the sleeping Drake. "Sleep tight, Drakey," he muttered quietly into his former gunner's ear. Despite all the taunts and the ridicule of the _Rook _ship, Kruger felt a huge void where his countrymen used to be on his team. Hornberg and Petrov were model agents, competent in every way, flawless in their execution. And that was just the problem. They were _too _perfect, and besides, they lacked the quirks and character that Kruger had come to expect from his South African teammates. The _Raven _wasn't as much fun anymore. Even the missions had become routine and by-the-numbers.

Kruger knew exactly why that was, why they'd been split up after the Kgosi Incident five years ago. Secretary Delacourt was taking no chances of an encore, and that meant breaking up the brotherhood of the Oryx Squadron. It had been her idea to give Kruger two new solid but boring teammates, and Drake his own command and ship. In those five years, the missions had been routine, the conversations boring, and even the invasions of the torus down. _She may have been a real _teef, _that woman, _he thought, _but she's no fucking idiot either._

A softly flashing green light brought Kruger out of his momentary trance. It was the comlink on Drake's limply dangling right wrist. Curious, as he always had been, Kruger quickly hacked around the password, first guessing Rina's birthday, then Drake's son's, as the string of numbers. _Too predictable. _When he saw that the sender read _Unknown, _he found his curiosity deepened even more. That could only be a top-level member of CCB brass, or else…

Who? Not Rina, surely. And his kids weren't old enough yet to text back and forth. Whoever it was, Kruger saw, flicking through the message history, had been messaging Drake for some time. He pulled up the latest message, and when he read it, his black eyes narrowed.

_Boogyman came 2 see me again last nite. He smells like an ashtray like always. Eeeeew _

This was followed by a "frowning face" emoticon, which was matched only by the grin that appeared on Kruger's bearded face. Pieces fell into place, and he immediately envisioned the picture they created. _Drakey's been keeping a secret, hasn't he?_

"Oh, does he now?" he murmured to himself as if in answer to Lorelei's text message. _This is gonna be fun…_

_To Be Continued_


	5. With Friends Like These

Chapter 5

**Author's Note: Thanks to my readers for their patience. A very special dedication on this one to C., in the hopes that you'll especially enjoy this chapter.**

"Good morning, Miss Delacourt."

Lorelei groaned and pulled up the covers up over her head. She _knew _that voice issuing from her bedside comm. She'd overslept again. That always seemed to happen the morning after an argument with her aunt.

"G'morning, Mr. Smith," she murmured into the device, knowing that ignoring him, or worse, not showing the proper courtesy, would mean extra laps around the track during their training session. "Sorry about that. I'll get changed and meet you at the training center, 'kay?"

One thing she liked about Garrett Smith: he never seemed to get upset, even at her many shortcomings and quirks. "Very well. I'll see you soon," he said, and the transmission ended.

It had been a long eight hours or so since the night previous, even if Lorelei had barely slept. She'd spent the majority of that time sending text after desperate text to her secret pen pal, the mysterious J.F. Drake. He was normally like a guardian angel; someone she could talk to whenever no one else, even Garrett, seemed to understand. He was also the only one she'd continued to talk to about her nighttime visitor (who, last night, had mercifully not shown up.)

Whatever Drake had been doing last night (she often fantasized about his being some kind of secret agent, because he was forbidden to talk about work), it must have been important, because he hadn't responded to her urgent message. That wasn't like him. That left Lorelei only a few options: to take more swings at her bed frame with the wooden _bokken, _brood, then try, without much success, to sleep. Both had left her restless and moody. So it was that she awoke the same way she'd gone to bed the night before: irritable, tired, and without the answers she needed.

_I hope, _thought Lorelei, moving behind her painted Japanese silk changing screen to put on the freshly laundered training garb Amelie had put out for her, _I can get a nap in today. Not with Mr. Smith, but maybe during Madame Gruenewald's class. _She grinned. The Latin mistress' dry lectures would have put anyone to sleep.

As she pulled the soft, loose white tunic over her head, Lorelei thought for a moment of _Tante _Jessica. She would have already left the house, of course, which meant any chance for an apology would have to wait until dinner that night, if not later. Lorelei's days started early, and _Tante _Jessica's began even earlier. She was, as she never tired of pointing out, responsible for the safety of each and every person on the torus. Even Lorelei could appreciate the importance of that, kind of.

Amelie, her attendant droid, entered the room almost soundlessly. Lorelei neither liked nor disliked her. She was a droid, a servant, and although Lorelei had enjoyed some fun with her (_the time I changed her voice to sound like that old Donald Duck cartoon's, now that was great),_ Amelie, unlike some of the other Elysians' personal servants, had never been a friend or even a confidante. Since she was currently muted thanks to Lorelei's tinkering, she simply went about her routine: making the bed, tidying the night table, and making ready Lorelei's things.

Lorelei finished pulling on her boots with a determined grimace. Part of her hated getting up so early; she'd never been a morning person, and her schoolmates wouldn't be getting up until well after the artificial sunrise. And then there was the other part of her, the part that enjoyed the discipline, order, and routine that her sessions with Mr. Smith had brought to her often unpredictable life. Sometimes they even made her forget the gaping hole in her memories where a part of her childhood should have been stored.

_That's what Dr. Perrine is supposed to help me with. Some help she's been. _Lorelei scowled at the thought of her aloof therapist, whom she'd also be seeing today. Aunt Jessica's orders for the last five years.

She made her way down the corridors of the immense estate, thinking of the things she'd said last night. _You're acting so immature, _Lorelei could imagine her aunt saying in that frosty, accented voice. Almost as if she were taunting.

"I am immature. I'm _ten_," said Lorelei out loud as she passed the solarium, as if to remind herself of that fact. So much had already been put upon her narrow shoulders: her lessons and the expectations that came with them, plus the immense burden of merely carrying the Delacourt name. Esme and Anila liked to tease her about being the "Princess of Elysium." Lorelei had since come to disdain the pink, sparkling, ruffled trappings of her earlier years, but they had a point. Her life _was _sort of like being a princess, at least the princesses she'd read about in her history class. People were always telling her what to do, where to go, how to dress. They never bothered to ask her opinions on the subject.

Well, except her friends. They actually cared…and listened. Mr. Smith, too, even if his reaction, a blank wall, was always the same.

No sign of Aunt Jessica anywhere in the house. Lorelei didn't even bother asking one of the droids. They were supposed to cook her meals, make sure she made it safely to school, clean her room…not look after her like she was a baby. A long time ago, Lorelei had gotten just as annoyed with the rest of the household staff as with Amelie, and reprogrammed them accordingly to leave her alone.

The last thing she had expected to see in the enormous foyer was another live person, so, when she spotted Garrett Smith, nattily dressed as always and waiting for her, Lorelei froze. He only rarely visited her at home, and when he did, the news was either very good or very bad. "Good morning, Mr. Smith," she called out, knowing he had already seen her. "Sorry I slept in," she added somewhat sheepishly.

"And a good morning to you." His stoic expression barely changed as she came down the staircase. That was another thing he'd been trying so hard to teach her: how to control her emotions. _If your enemy knows what you are feeling, he has won half the battle already, _he'd once told her. Lorelei may have been a natural in the sims and a whiz at hacking, but control was a skill she sorely lacked. In some ways she admired Mr. Smith for it; other times she wished he'd stop being such a blank slate. Even Aunt Jessica showed more emotion than that. "Shall we?" he asked her as she approached him, hefting her satchel over her shoulder.

Lorelei was confused. "Shall we what, Mr. Smith?" she asked him. She'd planned on taking the auto-programmed aircar to the training center where they normally worked together, and his physical presence troubled her for some reason. "Did I…do something wrong?" she probed, hoping to get at least some clue out of him.

A flicker of something…amusement, perhaps…played across the tall man's lips. "Quite the opposite. We'll be training somewhere else today. Let's just say you're ready for a new challenge," he said, gesturing to the front door.

_He was lying_, Lorelei knew somehow. There was no telling why, and she knew asking would be pointless, so she decided to let it go for now. That was the one thing all the adults in her life had in common: they only told her what they felt she needed to know. "Cool. Where is it?" She tried to sound excited.

"You'll see."

~~s~~

She'd been on hundreds of shuttle rides in her short life, and yet every one of them seemed like a fresh adventure. While Garrett Smith sat in his leather chair aboard his sleek personal Lagonda craft, catching up on his holo-reader, Lorelei pressed her face to the window, admiring not just the mansions of the torus but also the glowing, shimmering sphere of Earth just beyond. It wasn't quite the same as her nighttime viewing sessions, for sure; even so she was fascinated as she always had been.

"You're not playing with your comm pad," Mr. Smith said dryly, his dark eyes hardly moving from his reading. "Why is that, Miss Delacourt? Did you forget it?"

She hadn't; it was stuffed into the very bottom of her satchel. That had been one of the hardest things to keep secret from him: her five years' worth of secret correspondences with J.F. Drake. Inside, she was itching to check it, to see if somehow Drake had written back and given her some helpful advice for her predicament. "Um, I guess I did. I was really looking forward to training today," she said as casually as she could.

Mr. Smith blinked up at her. "Maybe so, or did you just have another argument with your aunt last night? You look as though you haven't slept at all."

How he always managed to intuitively know these things, Lorelei had never been able to figure out. Maybe they both talked about her when she was asleep. "Yeah," she sighed, "she's always trying to make me do things I don't want to do, boss me around, you know?" Lorelei turned her face away, not wanting him to see the tears that sprang to her eyes.

He put down the reader and leaned in close to her. "She only wants what's best for you," he said gently, "as do I. You have to know that, Lorelei."

That almost never happened, him using her first name like that. She was always "Miss Delacourt" to him, just as he was "Mr. Smith" to her. Maybe there was a warm heart in there after all…she'd guessed that out of the three main adults in her life, he was the safest bet there…and at the same time, there was that aloofness, the carefully constructed façade to keep hidden everything underneath. _In a lot of ways, I guess I do that too,_she decided. "I guess so," she agreed, not really feeling the words. She really wished she could go back to bed, pull up the covers, and hide from the world for a day. For the first time in a long time, Lorelei wasn't looking forward to a session in the sims. "Why does she have to be," she added, not caring to drop her annoyance with her aunt just yet, "so weird? You know?"

She felt his warm, reassuring hand on her shoulder; if Aunt Jessica's touch were like ice, then his had always been warm like a thermal spring. He even smiled. "I've known your aunt for a long time, and you know what?"

"What?" Lorelei was intrigued despite herself; she didn't know the adults' real ages, since they never talked about it, and everyone on the torus looked about the same age to her.

"She was always a hard worker, driven, though I'd never have ranked warmth highly on her list of positive traits," Mr. Smith said with the tiniest hint of a smirk. "But I don't need to tell you that, do I?"

It was her turn to laugh. "I watched an old Earth cartoon one time about a queen who could turn things into ice and snow, and _she_was warmer than Aunt Jessica is sometimes," she chuckled.

The aircar had glided almost soundlessly to a halt; in the moment of levity Lorelei had almost forgotten the comm pad in her bag, and her anxiety over the events of the previous day. Almost. "I promise I won't tell Aunt Jessica about what you just said, Mr. Smith," she said as the safety harness lifted automatically.

"I'd appreciate if you didn't." He winked, then likewise got up from his seat, stretching like a big cat. "Let's get you inside."

Lorelei looked out the window. This place was strange to her; a nondescript concrete building which looked more like an emergency bunker than one of the normal CCB training facilities. "Which sector are we in, anyway?" she asked. Normally she followed the track of their flight on her comm or by visual reckoning, but she had stashed away the device, and they'd been too busy talking for her to pay attention to their surroundings.

As the hatch opened with the barest hydraulic hiss, Mr. Smith did something Lorelei was not used to seeing him do, although he was always vigilant. He drew his silver pistol, the one she knew he kept tucked inside the shoulder holster he always wore. And there was something else that set her alarm bells off: no security droids, Homeland or otherwise, guarded this building. Normally there were at least a pair of them at every entrance, and this place looked completely deserted.

"Um, is everything okay, Mr. Smith?" Lorelei asked nervously.

The big man looked all around himself and the landing pad, a full circle sweep, then beckoned for her to step outside the vehicle. "Yes," he said, and the certainty in that single word boosted her confidence. She knew that, in addition to his already sharp senses, the metal implants in Mr. Smith's cheeks and temples let him see, and hear, even farther than most people, though she'd never thought to ask him the exact nature of their functions. "Come on, Miss Delacourt. We're behind schedule already."

Still, that slight hesitation told her there was something he was leaving out. Lorelei decided to follow her instinct, and stayed silent. _I don't know why grown-ups think kids can't handle the truth,_she thought, hefting her bag over one shoulder._Why they'd rather lie to us._

It was all she could do not to pull out her comm pad for a quick look-see, but as she'd come to learn about Mr. Smith, he also seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, perhaps another special feature of those facial implants. Lorelei mustered her restraint and walked on toward the bunker.

~~s~~

It wasn't even 0700 yet and already Lorelei had worked herself up to a sweat. Though the drills had been largely the same as they always were, Mr. Smith had been good to his word. There had been a few more new challenges thrown in there, and Lorelei had thrown herself into them with gusto. Any trace of lingering fatigue was gone. As she greedily sucked down some of her vita-water from a plastic bottle, she reminded herself that she still had a full day of dull classroom lessons ahead of her. At least she'd be seeing her friends. Maybe they'd have something useful to tell her.

Lorelei pictured them, and heard their voices, in her mind as she gathered her things to take to the dressing room for a shower. Anila, of course, would urge her to directly confront the adults, badger them until they gave her the information they wanted. If there was anyone on the torus more of a go-getter than the fiery, opinionated Anila Patel, Lorelei didn't know who it might be. On the other hand, Esme would probably just do what she always did, and stay quiet on the matter. _You can observe a lot just by watching,_the other girl had once said. _That's what my father says, or at least some old baseball player on Earth did, and Dad just quoted him._

The trouble was, Lorelei realized as she pulled off her sweaty boots, that she was neither as assertive as Anila nor as much a wallflower as sweet, shy Esme. There were times when she wanted to tie her aunt, Mr. Smith, and Dr. Perrine to chairs, hold hot irons to their feet, and demand that they fill in the yawning gaps in her memories. Other days she just wanted to be left alone in her room, playing with her comm, hacking into places she shouldn't, brooding over how unfair life could be even if you had everything you needed and more.

_Everything,_she thought as she rather violently undid her ponytail, _except the truth._

Inside the spacious locker room, as usual, Lorelei was the only person present, though she always had the uncanny sense she was being watched. _That's silly,_she wanted to believe, though she knew, from plenty of experience, that hidden cameras, some of them tiny, were literally everywhere on the torus, and though she also wanted to believe that a place like this was a sanctuary, she also knew better than that. What was creepier, she wondered, having the boogeyman in his dark cloak come to stare at her at her bedside, or the prospect of some bored techie looking in on her from the CCB control room? Luckily, whenever she had detected the presence of a camera, Lorelei had devised a simple but clever scrambling app that would deter any would-be Peeping Toms. All they'd see was static while the app was in place. That being said, all she had in here was that strange feeling, like a cold finger running up and down her spine.

_I wonder,_Lorelei thought as she finished dressing in her neatly pressed school uniform, _if the boogeyman doesn't just look in on me at night? Whether he watches me during the day somehow too?_

The morbidly curious side of her actually wondered where he'd been these past few nights. She'd never gone more than a week without one of his nocturnal visits, and in her own way, had come to crave the shared connection between then just as much as she likewise feared him. More discussion fodder for Dr. Perine…Lorelei winced at the thought of it…if she actually had bothered to confide in her therapist anymore.

The one person she could confide in was just outside, Lorelei knew, standing sentry as he always did. Mr. Smith was perhaps the one person who really respected her privacy. Today, though, he was not at his usual close-but-discreet distance as she exited the changing room. Maybe he'd gone to the bathroom, although, she suddenly realized, she'd never seen him do that either.

"Hello? Mr. Smith?" Lorelei called out, noticing how her voice failed to echo in this underground chamber. Shrugging, she decided to go look for him, remembering where she'd seen the toilets on the way in. He may have been the most stoic man she knew, but everyone had to go eventually, even him.

She'd only gotten halfway down the long corridor when she heard his voice, low and conspiratorial, like he was talking to someone. Even from where she was, Lorelei got the impression she was hearing only one side of it, that he was speaking to someone on a holo-screen or a comm. Instinctively she also knew that this wasn't supposed to be something she listened to, though the same side of her that longed for the boogeyman's return propelled her onward, edging closer to the source of Mr. Smith's voice on cat's feet.

"…because, as I said, we can't take any chances," Lorelei heard him saying, his voice calm and unruffled as always. "Yes, I'm keeping a close watch on Syren, you know that." A pause, and his tone turned slightly flustered. "You know as well as I that I'd inform you of the _slightest_abnormality, the tiniest whisper of trouble…"

Lorelei didn't know what he was talking about…it was another of his top-secret agent conversations, probably…yet she was intrigued. Courage, and sheer interest, overrode logic, and she peeked her blond head an inch or so around the open doorway. Mr. Smith was indeed talking on his wrist comm, pacing back and forth in the small room like an agitated bear. Lorelei had never been great at reading people, but she could tell something was bothering him. He spoke directly into the device.

"I have to cut this short, as I never know who might be listening these days. I will keep you abreast. Smith out."

Quickly Lorelei pulled back, her heart in her throat. Had he seen her? Smelled her, perhaps? She'd come to think of Mr. Smith as a kind of ninja like in those old stories, and no ability he possessed, even a supernatural ability, would have surprised her anymore. What would she say to him if he asked why she was eavesdropping? She thought of something quickly, and, lame though it was, it would have to do.

"Oh, there you are, Mr. Smith," Lorelei said, poking her head around the door and plastering a fake smile on her face. "I, um, got lost on the way to the restroom, and I just heard your voice." _Yeah, pretty stupid, all right._

To her great surprise and relief, he just smiled serenely. "No need to apologize at all. This is a new facility for you, and you saw what the layout is like. Even I got lost in here once," he conceded, pulling his jacket sleeve back over his comm. "Are you ready for me to take you to school?"

"Yeah." She wanted to exhale her relief, but held back. He either hadn't seen her, or he was a terrific actor. Probably the latter, considering the kind of poker face he had. Still, she couldn't help try and extract at least a nugget of information from him. "Were you on the phone with somebody? I didn't mean to interrupt," she said, using a favorite tactic of her aunt's. _When you want something, always act like you're sorry._

There was that brief moment of hesitation on his features again, a lightning flash across an otherwise cloudless sky. "It's nothing," Mr. Smith said, "just routine business. I wouldn't want to bore you, Miss Delacourt."

"No, I guess not," said Lorelei, though the hundred questions she'd wanted to ask him before had now multiplied to a thousand. Whatever he'd been talking about, it _was_important, and it probably involved her. "Can we go now? I'm getting a little claustrophobic in here," she added, and that much was true. This training facility was sublevel, and had none of the open space of their usual venue.

"Of course. Do you have your things?"

_What aren't you telling me?_Lorelei wondered as she slung her pack across her back. _And how deep am I going to have to hack this time to find out?_

~~s~~

"I bet it's the plague."

"Which one?"

"Who cares? _A_plague. The kind that makes your skin turn green, and then into a zombie," Anila Patel explained, sticking her slender, coppery arms in front of her for emphasis and moaning comically.

"There's no such thing as zombies," Esme Talbert protested in her prim RP. "I know. My grandfather is a biochemist and he says it's all nonsense."

School was finally out for the day, and Lorelei, Anila and Esme were tracking their way through the adjacent hedge gardens, Garrett Smith trailing at a discreet distance. Though she was relaxed in the presence of her two closest friends, Lorelei knew she had to be careful what she said. Mr. Smith would hear…and report…every word to her aunt and Dr. Perine. The three girls had speculated on the added security that day, double the number of droids patrolling the grounds and an unexpected safety evacuation drill in the middle of the afternoon.

"It's probably just the _Fete d'Automne_coming up_._You know, how 'anyone who's anyone will be there,'" Lorelei said in a stiff imitation of her aunt's Quebecois. "And it's a masquerade this year, so everyone will be in disguise. They'd have to need extra security for that."

Anila snorted. "Don't remind me. _Amma_still is badgering me to choose a costume," she said, "and she wants Sanjay to dress as Mahatma Gandhi. I told her, let him have the silly loincloth if he likes, but I have more dignity than to wear something like that."

"Gandhi was the one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century," Esme said. "Show some respect."

"He may have been, but he was funny-looking and he drank his own urine."

"You are so vulgar, Anila."

Lorelei laughed half-heartedly, but her mind really wasn't on the ball or even what costume she might wear. All these things were happening at once: the boogeyman's absence, the eerie silence from J.F. Drake, Mr. Smith's enigmatic conversations, the stepped-up security. It was like having a box full of puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit, yet desperately needed to form some greater picture. They _had_to be tied together, didn't they? As Mr. Smith was so fond of saying, there was no such thing as true coincidence. And nobody was willing to give her any answers, or even a clue. Lorelei scowled as she walked the well-tended path, kicking at a rock in her way.

"So what are you dressing as, Lorelei?" Esme asked her hopefully. Unlike the other two, she had always been fully invested in the idea that the right clothes and shoes were the main keys to success in life.

She hadn't given it much thought, but she said the very first thing that popped into her mind, without even thinking. "I think I'll be a mercenary," Lorelei said, a sly smile creeping over her features. "You know, like one of those super-secret CCB agents?"

Anila and Esme stopped mid-stride to stare at her.

"What?" Lorelei shrugged. "I already sort of dress like them, you know, when I do my physical training," she explained, tilting her head to indicate Mr. Smith behind her. "It's an easy costume: fatigues, boots…"

"Your aunt would be upset," Anila said solemnly, her dark almond eyes sparkling with mischief. "Whatever would she say?"

"I bet she'd ground you for a month," added Esme.

Lorelei stopped to consider this. She'd been grounded for far less grievous offenses before, and it might actually be fun to see the expression on Aunt Jessica's face in front of all the most important people on Elysium. It was a thought, at least. "Or maybe," she said dramatically, raising her own arms and pretending to menace her friends, "I'll just be really scary, and dress as a zommmmbiieeeee," she announced, moaning out the word as if she really had just become an undead version of herself.

That was too much; the three of them, even Esme, dissolved into fits of giggles. It was sorely needed after a couple of long, dry lectures on World War I and Latin irregular verbs that afternoon.

On her back, Lorelei felt a slight vibration through her pack. For a moment she wondered if Anila had set her up with some wild prank again, then realized it was her faithful old Dragonfly pad at the bottom of her bag, the one she'd stuffed down in there before leaving home that morning. She'd been so preoccupied she'd all but forgotten about it. Now, though, Lorelei could feel her heart thumping. One long followed by two shorts and another long, was the notification from one very specific person.

"I laughed so hard I have to pee," she said to her friends, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes for effect. "Be right back, okay?"

"Be careful of zombies. I hear they like to hide in the toilets," Anila warned.

"They do not," Lorelei heard Esme say as she turned to leave. "They're not even _real_…"

Turning back toward the school, and the one place she was sure she'd have at least a few minutes of privacy, Lorelei nearly ran into Mr. Smith, who had been following perhaps twenty feet behind them. "Are you quite all right, Miss Delacourt?" he asked her, kneeling down so that they were nearly at eye level. "Did you forget something?"

It was the way he asked it, like there was some hidden meaning in his words, that made her swallow hard. With him, nothing was ever as it seemed; an entire reef of lively creatures lived beneath those still, calm waters. "No, Mr. Smith. I, um, just need to go to the restroom again," Lorelei said, hoping she sounded genuine.

"Very well. I'll wait outside for you."

It was only a short distance back to school, and yet Lorelei felt that same heady mix of excitement and dread she normally reserved for the hooded man himself. J.F. Drake had finally written her back. What had he said? What sort of news, or advice, had she gotten from him?

She didn't dare pull out her comm pad, or even take off her backpack, until she'd safely locked herself into the farthest stall from the door inside the girls' bathroom. Yes, perhaps she was being watched even in here, but Lorelei knew she didn't have a choice. Besides, her curiosity was burning now. She had to know. With trembling hands, she pulled the old but venerable device from the bottom of her bag and unlocked it to receive the text message. When she finally read it, she didn't know whether to be disappointed or not. It was short, as if Drake had been in a great hurry when he wrote it.

_Coming up next few days for extra security. Maybe you and I will finally meet._

After a moment, Lorelei realized she had been holding her breath, and exhaled deeply. Was that all? Nothing about an answer to her questions, or a bit of advice on dealing with her aunt? She scrolled through again, looking for anything. It didn't come.

Knowing her time in here was short, since there was only so long Mr. Smith would wait without assuming she'd somehow fallen in, Lorelei texted back rapidly, fingers flying.

_I don't even know what you look like. And we have the masquerade next week, is that what you mean? How will I know it's you?_

She clicked "send," then waited for what seemed like an eternity, pacing the tight confines of the stall. When at last the pad did vibrate its alert again, Lorelei read what it said. It was a single line. She felt her heart frantically galloping.

_Oh, I think you'll know me when you see me._

_To Be Continued_


End file.
